"Woman Selling Baskets" ~ Gum Dichromate Print

 Being a blog, I feel all elements of printing should be offered up for examination, even when it isn't pretty. This image is one that has cost me more time and print runs, in gum, than any other image I've ever printed. This print is the seventh printing of this image; same 8x10 digital negative, from an Epson 1430 printer. A truly beautiful piece of work itself.

As noted earlier, the passing of my wife didn't enduce the creative spirit, on top of my attention and focus was off, allowing mistakes to take place. Any blemish on the paper, any miscalculation or wrong appliation and the print is junk, like the first six attempts. Preparing the paper for making a g um print takes five days. Each color layer printed is another day and this print needed seven color printing, with two split colors added simultaneously, there nine colors on seven printings.

What captures my eye today is not that much different from my earlier work. My first photographs, with a photo series of my little sister hitching up a Beagle to a wagon, wearing a newly acquired cowgirl outfit, replete with twin cap pistols. That was in 1963, two years after I got my first [knock off] Brownie camera. This image was taken while visiting La Paloma, Mexico a couple years ago, a sleepy little border town directly south of Deming, New Mexico, a route taken by Poncho Villa in the early 20th century. That is also a photographer's cornucopia of shots during reenactments of that famous ride. Lots of Caballos and Caballeros in full regalia of riding outfits of that time, and full Gracheros sombreros.

The woman in this image was with another woman, sitting on the street selling Baskets and wares. I ask her permission to take the shots of them both, one at a time. Something of a coup. It is good to carry a few five dollar bills, in earnest payment for taking someone's photograph in a foreign country.

This is a seven layer gum dichromate print, using nine separate colors. I began with a basic CYMK run but in KCYM order, then began coaint the different tonal zones, requiring different print times. The woman's face being one zone, needing the least amount of print time. The blouse was next in tonal density, with the background being needing the most print time to retain color. The point of the printing was all about the light. I not longer care all that much for tonalities. What I'm after now, is capturing the light on a subject.

Gum Dichromate Print ~ Unique

"Woman Selling Baskets" ~ 8x10

La Paloma, Mexico

"Two Ponies Wild" ~ Gum over Gold toned Kallitype

    I have begun printing again, after a lengthy hiatus, the passing of my wife, and the two gum prints I had near finish, yet lost focus and ended up tossing them both, with them not what I had in mind. This is the first of the fresh prints, a four color gum run over a gold toned Kallitype. I base the process to be used, gum, or gum over, dependent on the image, how each process would likelyrepresent the image. For these horses, I chose gum over. I also printed the image in socium acetate, for a cool black image, instead of the warm browner image of developing in sodium citrate.

I based the gum over colors to a basic CYMK, with the toned b&w image as the K run, as base coat, then followed by cadmium yellow, then quinacridone magenta, and finally turquoise. To accommodate the various tonal ranges, best suited for each color applied, I used print time. The longest print time being for the sky, at nine minutes, leaving the soft blue as the dominant color. The ponies were in a print range of seven minutes or less, needing less light for permanence. 

Gum over Gold toned Kallitype

"Two Ponies Wild" ~ 8x10

Open Range, Eastern Arizona