This is a post about the times and current situations. Regardless of where we live, we're all dealing with much the same situation. Buenos dias a mi amigos en España. I had no idea. Forgive the Spanish, I realize it's crap. Learning academic Spanish is for language teachers, not how to actually speak the language. I have not been idle these past days, in spite of the mostly lock down conditions that prevail at this time.
I am currently working on the second gum over palladium print of Native dancers. It also will be an 11x14 print, with the intent on coloring the image pretty much in the same scheme as the first one. The time and mood remain the same, different group of dancers, with two of the lead dancers, from the first image. The colors applied to these prints are the boldest, brightest, most saturated color applications I've ever used. I admit, I'm liking it. My earlier work was more subdued, pastel in nature. What I was after then, as now, was the light. Capturing the quality of the light reflecting off objects. I'm also near color blind to red/green, so, there's that.
The thing is, with the book series completed, and the steady production of prints needed for examples used in the books, the pace of printing has changed. All prints I make now, are unique. Including Kallitype and palladium. The precious metal prints included. Making the platinum/palladium prints was truly excellent. I used the double sodium Na2 process, finding it a most beautiful medium for printing. That was last year, when palladium cost $77 for 25ml and platinum was $99 for 10ml. I used it at 2.5% solution, so, enough platinum to last me the rest of my life. The palladium, now about triple last year's price. My adjustment to that is making "poor man's" palladium prints; palladium toning a silver print, in this case a Kallitype. There are thousands of those poor man's platinum's, printed in the early years of the 20th century; same reason as today.
The sister print to the Two Lilies print will be printed sometime soon. Now that I have the preferred contrast and corrected density range for the negative, this print will be easy. Following that, I have two matching images from Tumacacori Mission of stone rooms, with old stone steps, soon to follow. The printing continues, albeit at a slower pace than before. That doesn't make for good blogging, but it does make good prints. My thanks for visiting my blog, and good energy to your photographic work.
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
"Two Lilies" ~ Final Print ~ Palladium
I will say here, that this image was the most difficult image I've ever tried to print. Printing a full tonal range of a print image has to do with the entire range of tonalities/densities. Printing a completely white object(s) is not really the same. That requires printing in one tonal range, with inclusion of other tonalities in the shadowed range. That can be from zone 3 [full shadow detail] and zone 2 [deep enough any objects can only be detected, no details], and that is a vast difference as tones go. That left me with the task of figuring out an image contrast, and density range of the negative, such that, the printing will realize the brightest white; zone 7, will just reach its maximum tonal range without pushing the shadow area from fully detailed texture into zone 2, dark shadow, no detail.
The first two posts of earlier prints reveals that gap closing each new print, until reaching that balance between the whites and shadows; the textural zones. A bit annoying to me it took as many tries as it did. First error being sampling the wrong area of the print for an informed interpretation of the whole image. That led me astray for a while, before enlightenment to the situation. I have never attempted to [hand coated] print two white objects, with shadows. Works so much easier in digital heaven.
This is also the first image I've printed to the full 11"x17" format. I've been working in 11"x14", being that is the prevailing pre-cut mat size. Then I stumbled upon this pre-cut mat size from one of the vendors I use for my supplies, and this, will allow me to print images that just can't be cropped from their original digital format [8x12 ~ instead of film; 8x10]. I crop to just what I want, when I snap the shutter. I'm not a shoot wide angle then look for something to crop out after look over the original scene. Amateurs do that.
This final print was printed on Revere Platinum paper, developed in sodium acetate developer, then toned in Palladium; the print is a Palladium print now. The palladium toning does two things, the first being the obvious, the palladium salts completely replacing all the silver salts in on the paper, leaving a palladium print; the "poor man's" Palladium print. There were many of those produced during the early years of the twentieth century. The more commonly known moniker was the 'poor man's platinum", as platinum was then as now, amazingly expensive. Over the period of this last year, palladium has almost tripled in price, making it now a rather expensive material to use for large print sizes. I've been corresponding with a gentleman that has been using a 16"x20" view camera, and making platinum prints. I don't know about the reader's take on that, but it boggled my mind, having the ability to actually make that happen.
Final print; this digital image of the original print is a bit misleading, as this image appears at those the highlight white on the left side of the primary lily has gone blank white. It has not. There is texture throughout that area on the original print. My failing eyesight and ignorance of digital ways lave only a crappy replica of what is a much better image on paper, than on the screen. My apologies for that failing The stem shadow remains soft, as desired. The whitest white on the print, at the edges of the primary lily, are textured whites.
Palladium toned Kallitype Print
"Two Lilies" ~ 11"x17" ~ Unique
The first two posts of earlier prints reveals that gap closing each new print, until reaching that balance between the whites and shadows; the textural zones. A bit annoying to me it took as many tries as it did. First error being sampling the wrong area of the print for an informed interpretation of the whole image. That led me astray for a while, before enlightenment to the situation. I have never attempted to [hand coated] print two white objects, with shadows. Works so much easier in digital heaven.
This is also the first image I've printed to the full 11"x17" format. I've been working in 11"x14", being that is the prevailing pre-cut mat size. Then I stumbled upon this pre-cut mat size from one of the vendors I use for my supplies, and this, will allow me to print images that just can't be cropped from their original digital format [8x12 ~ instead of film; 8x10]. I crop to just what I want, when I snap the shutter. I'm not a shoot wide angle then look for something to crop out after look over the original scene. Amateurs do that.
This final print was printed on Revere Platinum paper, developed in sodium acetate developer, then toned in Palladium; the print is a Palladium print now. The palladium toning does two things, the first being the obvious, the palladium salts completely replacing all the silver salts in on the paper, leaving a palladium print; the "poor man's" Palladium print. There were many of those produced during the early years of the twentieth century. The more commonly known moniker was the 'poor man's platinum", as platinum was then as now, amazingly expensive. Over the period of this last year, palladium has almost tripled in price, making it now a rather expensive material to use for large print sizes. I've been corresponding with a gentleman that has been using a 16"x20" view camera, and making platinum prints. I don't know about the reader's take on that, but it boggled my mind, having the ability to actually make that happen.
Final print; this digital image of the original print is a bit misleading, as this image appears at those the highlight white on the left side of the primary lily has gone blank white. It has not. There is texture throughout that area on the original print. My failing eyesight and ignorance of digital ways lave only a crappy replica of what is a much better image on paper, than on the screen. My apologies for that failing The stem shadow remains soft, as desired. The whitest white on the print, at the edges of the primary lily, are textured whites.
Palladium toned Kallitype Print
"Two Lilies" ~ 11"x17" ~ Unique
Saturday, May 9, 2020
"Two Lilies" ~ Updated Version
It was worth the effort to continue to trek into new territories of printing experiences, learning to print white objects, with a bit of shadow. For me, that meant staying within the confines of zone 7 for all white areas, as deep as zone 3 for shadow, and zone 2 and below in the background. I believe I realized that, finally. Normally, it normally takes one, maybe two, well placed test strips to arrive at a correct print time. Basically, how much time to print the highlights to a textured level; zone 7. When the entire image is basically zone 7, things get trickier.
Same paper, same developer, same toning; different negative density range; flatter. I used Revere Platinum paper, developed in sodium acetate for the cool tones, toned with palladium. This is closer to the ideal print I had in mind. I am not finished with printing this image. This print will be unique, as are all my prints these days. I want the final print to be the image I know it can be.
Palladium toned Kallitype Print
"Two Lilies" ~ 11x17
Same paper, same developer, same toning; different negative density range; flatter. I used Revere Platinum paper, developed in sodium acetate for the cool tones, toned with palladium. This is closer to the ideal print I had in mind. I am not finished with printing this image. This print will be unique, as are all my prints these days. I want the final print to be the image I know it can be.
Palladium toned Kallitype Print
"Two Lilies" ~ 11x17
Thursday, May 7, 2020
"Two Lilies" ~ Palladium toned Kallitype
Being a serial confessor, I will say here that printing this image was the most difficult image I have ever worked with, or attempted realize. It was not process I was having a problem with, as I have worked that out long ago. This round was all about interpretation, and the choices to be made to arrive at what I thought I wanted when I began, and that has to do with technique. As I have brought up in earlier posts, I have been moving away from printing with the focus on representing full spectrum tonal range prints representing an image, the shift is in altering the existing tonalities of the image to shape the image to a more dramatic setting, altering the effect of light within the scene.
That process, for me, is discovering the Pictorial Effect of an image. Not, are all the tonalities represented, but what tonalities are to be included, and how much of each. When I began hand coated printing almost forty years ago, that process entailed altering the relationship of the latent densities chemically, by altering the ASA/ISO, placement of shot, choice of developer, dilution of developer, and development time. All of which result in a global alteration of the densities, hence tonality of the print. Today, with Paintshop Pro x9, and Lightroom 6, I am able to do things to the now digital image in ways one couldn't hardly dream up back then.
Now, I can add an adjustment <curve> [controlling the density range], contrast control, and individual tonal range control, and that isn't even touching on layering and masking, or any of the other Gee Whiz things that are built into those programs. When I worked in IT support, setting up and keeping computer systems running smoothly, 486's were king and DOS was the primary language for the work to be done. That is the Model-T of computing. I won't mention working with mainframes in the '70's, or card readers with sorting machines in the '60's.....
I have worked on this image for over a week now; daily, with the result of six printed negatives, three full size prints, and three dozen test strips, and I'm still not really happy with the finished image. This is the first time I ever attempted to print white objects. The print shows the veins running along the surface of the Lily, all the way to near paper base white; zone 8. The Kallitype printing process tends to make black the lower tonalities, thus, when altering the whites to represent the fuller spectrum of white, it also alters the lower tonalities, thereby deepening them upon printing, and that, increases contrast. That was the battle. The original [inkjet print] to 12"x18" is very, very difficult to replicate. There is also the problem if making the digital copy of the original print with good fidelity. There is a sister print to come, same Lilies, different view. I will keep working this one out, as I really want to print this image as I know it can be.
Palladium toned Kallitype Print
"Two Lilies" ~ 11"x17"
That process, for me, is discovering the Pictorial Effect of an image. Not, are all the tonalities represented, but what tonalities are to be included, and how much of each. When I began hand coated printing almost forty years ago, that process entailed altering the relationship of the latent densities chemically, by altering the ASA/ISO, placement of shot, choice of developer, dilution of developer, and development time. All of which result in a global alteration of the densities, hence tonality of the print. Today, with Paintshop Pro x9, and Lightroom 6, I am able to do things to the now digital image in ways one couldn't hardly dream up back then.
Now, I can add an adjustment <curve> [controlling the density range], contrast control, and individual tonal range control, and that isn't even touching on layering and masking, or any of the other Gee Whiz things that are built into those programs. When I worked in IT support, setting up and keeping computer systems running smoothly, 486's were king and DOS was the primary language for the work to be done. That is the Model-T of computing. I won't mention working with mainframes in the '70's, or card readers with sorting machines in the '60's.....
I have worked on this image for over a week now; daily, with the result of six printed negatives, three full size prints, and three dozen test strips, and I'm still not really happy with the finished image. This is the first time I ever attempted to print white objects. The print shows the veins running along the surface of the Lily, all the way to near paper base white; zone 8. The Kallitype printing process tends to make black the lower tonalities, thus, when altering the whites to represent the fuller spectrum of white, it also alters the lower tonalities, thereby deepening them upon printing, and that, increases contrast. That was the battle. The original [inkjet print] to 12"x18" is very, very difficult to replicate. There is also the problem if making the digital copy of the original print with good fidelity. There is a sister print to come, same Lilies, different view. I will keep working this one out, as I really want to print this image as I know it can be.
Palladium toned Kallitype Print
"Two Lilies" ~ 11"x17"
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