Gum over Gold Toned Kallitype ~ Girl with Flower

This print is a re-print of an earlier attempt, which in the end I didn't like. I knew I could do better. I did. I could see that many of the textural qualities were being lost, a slightly too heavy hand. I kept the gum layers sheer, only to enhance what was already there, without making the image look like the colors had been painted on, with a house painter's brush. The more I print the more I come to realize that the lighter hand is always preferable to a heavy handed attempt.

The primary objective of making prints, for me, is capturing the light, or more specifically capturing the light as it reflects off objects in the image, including people. That's my objective. Bright sunlight can be seen reflecting off trees, people's clothes, rocks and dried grasses. Capturing that light is reflected in the correct negative densities to begin with, then reciprocally printed to reflects them in the print image. I would tell you that to be zone 7, relative to the density range of the negative. Zone 7 on a negative isn't one density. I can be any density chosen. It is the relationship of the densities below the highest density on the negative, down to zone 1. If the relationship between zone 3 (shadow textural density) and zone 7 (white with full detail ~ highlights) then the negative will print well, as a Kallitype, platinum, salt paper, print(s). As always, one prints to zone 7.

This print was printed on Hahnemuhle 320/gm, pre-shrunk in water at 120 degs or more, for 1 minute. That is all that is necessary as the printed Kallitype image becomes the base of the gum layers, just as a good sizing would. This print entailed three gum print layers, with the middle layer entailing three colors, each applied locally.

Gum over Gold toned Kallitype
"Girl with Flower" ~ 8x8 ~ Unique
Eugene, Oregon ~ 1983