Printing Time ~ Writing Time

The slack in the momentum of printing new images has to do with focusing the available energy onto the other side of my retirement; writing. It is also no secret that I have nine books in print at this time. The last book completed was The Alchemist's Guide; to black & white film and photo chemistry. It is that book and a most propitious chance meetup with another local photographer who happened to have a large darkroom facility that he offered to pretty much anyone wanting to use it. Free. The one thing that led to another part of the story isn't needed to know all turned out well. I began writing about something I know and love, which led to a custom darkroom, and platinum/palladium printing. Almost makes you want to believe in Leprechauns.

On that topic of darkrooms, I have not fully completed that project, and that is one more reason for being away from the printing routine. I am building a cabinet for storing presentation cases that will fit under the counter top work space. The final piece will be an 12"x18" light box, able to compare two 8x10 negatives in their acetate size of 8 1/2"x11". It will also have a 40 degree forward slant, and that will enable me to also use it to copy negatives with my digital camera and 70mm-300mm macro lens. Then the darkroom will be complete and the work flow ability will be enhanced, as will storage area, now taken up with presentation cases, soon to be tucked away yet easily reached.

On that other side, the writing, is currently working out the second book of the soon to be the Alchemist's Guide; series. The original book being the one noted above, the book I am currently working on is The Salt Paper printing process. It is the first hand coated printing process I worked with, over thirty years ago. I found it to be very rewarding as a printing process, especially with it being a printing out process, as well as the very long tonal scale. When I began hand coating there was little information on the subject, outside libraries with old books on the subject. I still have a number of books I found in book stores, from the thirties and forties that gave me the foundation to my knowledge of black and white film photography. They were actually invaluable for that task.

As I have learned from the years of getting the books into publication, using a POD platform, that from the reader's point of view, technical and instructional books should be 150 pages, give or take. And I believe for good reason. It's long enough to cover a specific topic fully and in depth without becoming a text book. The secondary reason is cost, as the alternative to this are the current "Bibles" on photographic subjects, from lighting to wildlife shooting, or the bibles on alternative processes that cover every single possible iteration of how to get a dark color on paper using chemicals and light. Systems you never even heard of, and for that, they deserve credit, as that isn't an easy task. For those individuals that have come to stumble onto photography and found it a bit addictive, and want to learn what you can and try stuff out, the bibles are the ticket. A bit spending relatively speaking yet worth the money just for the information they contain.

For the photographer that wants to learn a specific process, a walk through step by step method, including formulas, the short version becomes far more useful, and cheaper. Books to come will include The Kallitype & Van Dyke processes (identical, using different developers), Platinum/Palladium (Na2) printing and finally Gum Dichromate Printing. One of the things I learned when I started out was that being a competent writer or a competent photographer was good, but being able to be a photographer & writer was way better and made more money. The books will be works in progress for many months to come, as will the printing. What will change will be my focus on printing in Pt/Pd and gum exclusively, as well as scale up at some point to make 11x14 prints. Now that's something that excites my senses.