Gum Over Silver Print

There was a second mixed media print I made, although it was more experimental, as it was the only time I used a black and white film negative for printing a gum image back then. I had been making the gums using paper negatives. The tonal scale of a paper negative fits well for the gum print. It can be said that one doesn't need a long density range to make a gum print. Any negative that would print well on a commercial silver gelatin paper would do well making a gum print. It can also be said that a negative with a longer tonal scale also prints quite nicely, and has some advantages.

Being that the  tonal range of a paper negative is not going to be anything like a film negative, print time is rather critical. A full  minute too long and one loses the subtle middle tones that overprint. With a longer tonal scale, from the longer density range of the negative, print time isn't so critical, and, there will be better separation between the tones, being there will be more density between each tonal range. A larger difference between tones, from the negative densities, means more visual separation from one tone to the next. The largest reason there is the detailed tonal separation in this image being it began as a salted silver print; (salt paper process). That laid out the scale of the image, with the coats of gum to add depth and color to the image. Theoretically, the sky should be blue(ish) with some show of the puffy white clouds, with the foreground of scrub bushes ranging from green(ish) to blue/green, being cyan was the final layer of color. There was also a magenta and yellow layers underneath the cyan layer. I didn't feel I needed black.

There has been some digital manipulation on my part in order to bring the image as close to what I saw of the actual print being copied. As I said, I'm deficient in red/green. My apologies for the interesting affects beyond the scope of that arrangement. In gum printing, color is of course everything. I just don't see much of it. I rely upon theory here. A primary reason I wasn't to repeat this silver/gum printing arrangement was because by the time I began printing like this, the world took a left turn and I wasn't paying attention, thus finding myself flying headlong forward. Interesting, that. That story can be found in my memoir. Same website selling my black and white photo book(s). The first hand coating book on the salt paper process is just finished. The Kallitype Print book is next.

There isn't much I can say about this print beyond it being a gum over silver print. The image was taken with a Schneider Kreuznach 210 Acutesar lens, mounted on a Burke & James 5x7 flat bed view camera, somewhere in northern Arizona. I believe. It was a long time ago.

Gum Dichromate over Salted Silver Print

"Desert Mesas" ~ 5x7 ~ Unique