Printing in a Pandemic

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.