Awaiting Supplies

This is one of those pregnant pauses between action that tends to drive viewers nuts. The primary impulse is to yell "DO SOMETHING!!" Especially in the time of instantaneous living. That's not easy to keep up with when one's considered an old timer. Little do they know. One of the several vagaries of combining writing and photography into a single endeavor is simply that it sucks energy like a four barrel Hollie sucks high grade fuel. That's an indicator of age right there.

The writing/photo endeavor of which I  speak is of course the book on salted paper printing, book #2 in a series, eventually to be five books. It is now officially released and available on amazon or any bookstore. In the course of those efforts I was lucky enough to find a graphic artist for layout work using professional software. That makes the book so much nicer. This was also the first time I included black and white images for comparative use, demonstrating the connection between density range in a negative, and tonal range in the final print. They did their job.

I am awaiting the arrival of new pack of acetate film, and supply of printing paper. I have been using Revere Platinum paper, with excellent results. I found that paper equal to Arches Platine paper, the oldest rag paper for platinum printing there is. What I will be printing on for the next twenty five prints will be Hahnemuhle paper, pre-cut to 11"x15". The paper size I use for gum printing or gum over palladium printing, which is what I am focused on now, is 11"x14", so a simple trim and I have ready to use print paper. For the gum over printing the paper is first pre-shrunk. An easy task with print paper like this. The sheets don't even have a stiffening or wrinkling problem. Really lovely to work with. With this order I'll have sufficient materials for two short portfolios, one of which will be people, several of children. The gum over palladium brings such images to life. Gum over palladium prints are also quite unique, and very rare.

Gum Over Palladium Print

"The Vicar's Window" ~ 8x10 ~ Unique

The final book of the series will be on gum printing, with an entire section on 'gum over' printing; silver, palladium, platinum. This image was printed as a Kallitype; citrate developer, toned in Palladium, then three layers of gum applied until I had the look I wanted.