There are layers of things that can go wrong when working with any hand coated print, from paper treatment problems, sensitizing mixture irregularities, coating problems, print time and other elements of the process that can ruin an otherwise "good" print. Good, indicating the printer ended up with what they had wanted. Then, there are unexplained artifacts showing up in a hand coated print, over and over, when technically speaking, they really have no plausible explanation, beyond intervening spirits. Yeah, I hear it, don't exist, phantom blame and the like.
I have three images of Native American dancers at a Pow Wow, in full regalia doing their sacred dances. Hence the print image I am currently struggling with, "Sacred Dance". This particular image I have printed over a dozen times, in different processes, and each and every time, there is an unknown and unwanted artifact in the final print. Every single time, no matter how careful I am, when close inspection at every process level indicates nothing that shouldn't be there, but when the developer hits the print, there they are. Having Cherokee blood in my veins tends to pull me to Native spiritual explanations that said Native Americans do not like having their photographs taken, especially surreptitiously, as I captured the dances using a long lens on a digital camera. I won't be positing spirits interfering, however, I will press on, finishing the print with layers of gum, to come.
The 'artifacts' I speak of appear to be birds at a distance, little crooked lines as they would appear a mile away in the air, turning and floating on the warm air at the end of the day, as is normal in Arizona. Each of those 'birds' is directly over the heads of the two Shaman dancers, only. I am not messing with that. Spirit it is then. The gum layering will begin, although I have yet to finalize the colors used or order of printing. That task begins when the print is fully dry, and in even light where I stare at the image for some length of time until I 'see' how the colors are going to interact with the image and each of the elements. One element is the sky, very late afternoon, which is indicated in the image by the long shadows coming from the dancers. What I am after is that late afternoon golden glow of the light on the dancers. The highlights haven't been fully printed in, as I would normally do. Those highlights will pick up the colors that will be printed into those densities, adding the textural detail and combined color. Printing to the light. The task then, being to hold each color layer right at zone 7, then the rest of the tonal range takes care of itself
The base print image is a palladium toned Kallitype, printed with sodium acetate, leaving a rich black & white image that will show well with the gum colors over. The print now is a palladium print, hence gum over palladium. There is the option of developing the Kallitype in sodium citrate, leaving the print a warm toned image visually synonymous with a palladium print developed in the traditional potassium oxalate formula. One of the advantages of Kallitype printmaking. The Kallitype process also allows for a large variation in density ranges in the negative. The 'look' of the print of course shows the differences, leaving the printer a wide range of options for shaping the final print image.
I will begin photographing this print with tomorrow's post, giving the print time to dry down, and the first gum layer is added. Time will tell how bold I will be in choosing colors, mixture concentrations and color order when I begin applying the colors. I have yet to add any color and I already have three days of work on this image, from paper preparation through printing this first base image. By the time I am anywhere near being finished will be about this time next week, if all goes well and no errors along the way. Any error and the image is junk. I start all over again. Experimentation is something I do very carefully and only after lengthy thought on it and a decent justification of for the efficacy of doing it in the first place. But that's just me. One can just go crazy trying out different options taking you down different avenues, I do that on the side. Perhaps age has something to do with urges for experimentation. Tomorrow, the base palladium image.
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