Gum Print in Progress

 Realizing a blog is supposed to have fresh material on a regular basis. I know this. Under the circumstances, printmaking has slowed down considerably. Home maintenance and improvements have captured my time and energy over the past weeks. I will confess, I did make an 11x14 gum over palladium print of Native Dancers, having completed the first one of the series, with it turning out quite nicely. I will also confess that I knew a few layers in that I wasn't liking it as I should have been. At that point it was what it was, and I wanted to see it to the end, just to see where it would go.

 I didn't like it. At all. It annoyed me that I had made it. That one is on a back burner, with some work on the negative image, tweaking it a bit before printing it again. And yeah, I printed that one over the course of five or six weeks. To make up for that, I jigged up a new image I captured recently. Adopting an elder cat, being elder and all, won't be round for the length of a kitties lifetime. Capt Jack. He staggers a bit and is unsteady on his feet at times, like he's coming off a long binge. But he affectionate, and loves to eat. He is a professional napper, and that is th eimage; him napping on the couch.

 This print is a gum print, on Fabriano Artistico 300 g/m, pre-shrunk but not sized. I'm relying on the paper's interior and exterior sizing to keep the image off the paper fibers. There is a bit of paper stain on the first run, which was a mix of light cyan, with a tiny spot of dark cyan for a deeper blue, over the entire print area. I'm going to begin the print using the standard CYMK printing format. I laid on the Golden Yellow layer this afternoon. Next up will be a quinacridone magenta, followed by a very sheer black layer, before beginning to color highlight areas on his fur.

I  find myself moving away from traditional realism,although, I admit the last print of "Morning Ritual" was pretty much dead on realistic replica of our front door view. I didn't mean it that way exactly, I follow the printing intuitively, theoretically, based upon subtractive color theory and color wheel principles. I've made it well known that I am near color blind to red/\green colors. Makes printing a bit dicey at times. Ya throw's the dice' and ya sees what ya gets. Not always, as standard printing theory keeps things in the lines. It is when the urge to experiment, trying out a new style or color application. One mistake and the print is junk.

I have to say I am enjoying printing in gum again, not gum over palladium. It's a difference experience. I have two 8x10 printing frames for gums so I am working on the 11x14 print of Capt Jack and began an 8x10 print of a pond at sunset, surrounded by trees. A subtly shaded scene and I want to get the light right, as well as the delicacy and tones of the light on the water. That's the tricky part. Stay tuned.

"Morning Ritual" ~ Gum over Palladium Print

I have been working on this print for some time now. So many thing getting in the way of that endeavor have slowed that process down considerably. This image was taken rather recently. The cat being our own Zoey, or Zoe Zoe as she was known by us. Her morning routine was to sit before the open front door, sitting peacefully, watching the world outside her own. The colors I used in the print image are mostly replicated from the actual colors of our living room, with exception to the floor tiles, which I lightened, using a pale green, instead of the darker brown of the real tiles. My use of color, and application therein, continues to change from when I began printing almost five years ago. That would be expected. This print has nine print layers, using thirteen color mixtures. There are four layers of variations of blue on the doors, and in the shadows. There are three different variations of red also applied to shadows. There should be colors in shadows, not just gray or black.

The trick for me is actually seeing the red spectrum colors I add, being I am all but color blind to red/green. And yet, I make colored gum prints. I'm like that. The most important element of any print, is the light. Reflecting how the light works on reflected objects and textures is, for me, what it's all about. The light, defines the image. The colors follow. I could have chosen any number of color combinations that would have worked. The colors in this print were chosen as I felt they represented the image best. Again, for me. The gum print remains the most versatile and personalized printing method of all printing methods. The possibilities with making a gum print are truly endless.

Gum over Palladium Print ~ Unique

"Morning Ritual" ~ 8"x10

 

"Old Wagon Wheel ~ Palladium toned Kallitype ~ Final Print

The shortening of the density range, or flattening the negative curve slightly, got the image where I had wanted, favoring the middle tones. The point of the image was the texture of the old wood showing up, more than the contrast between highlights and shadows. Palladium toning deepens blacks and deeper shadows, it open up the middle tones, lightening and separating tonal values, like the little flicks of black in dried wood, separating it from the highlights, adding contrast with the tonal separations. The toning also lightens and brightens highlights.

One issue I have come across from printing these larger prints, is the variations in print time caused by variations in the amount of solution on the print paper. I am finding a very different result between the test strips used to find print time, and the results of that print time on a coated full sheet. The ratios are slightly different, with the full print receiving a slight bit more solution for the area covered, than the test strips. Not that much though. This print image had four minutes less print time than the twelve minute test strip, yet, came out darker. Intuitively speaking, it would seem that more solution, deeper paper penetration, would require more print time to reach all the silver in the solution. This theory doesn't seem to be cooperating. That, then, demands some further testing, for that variation in outcomes.

This print was processed as the one before, with exception to print time, which was less. The first, more contrasty print image had a print time of ten minutes, as did the first copy of this image. This image had a print time of eight minutes, developed in sodium citrate then toned in Palladium for ten minutes. Palladium toner is a top down toner, working on highlights first, working down to the blacks over time. The citrate developed Kallitype is a warm toned image, the palladium toner cools the overall  image somewhat. If there is sufficient middle tones, the toning leaves them somewhat warm toned, although tonally responsive as the other areas.

Palladium toned Kallitype ~ Unique
"Old Wagon Wheel" ~ 11"x17"
Mesilla, New Mexico

"Old Wagon Wheel" ~ Palladium toned Kallitype

I've made it back into the darkroom again, having been rather focused on home affairs that were sufficiently important to absorb my full attention over the past few weeks. There is also a slight change that has begun to unfold, becoming a partner in creative endeavors. With a list of eleven book I have in print at this time it isn't much of a secret I am also a writer. Technically, my first calling. Long story, that.

This print was planned as an addition to the four recent 11"x17" palladium toned Kallitype prints I made. Two considerations to this  particular series of prints is their size, the maximum a wide body printer can make a negative, and, the prints all being unique. I am becoming ever more vigilante in selecting an image for printing now. Not just any image will do. Because of the above conditions of these  prints, the image should be really good. Something a viewer would see as "wow, I really like that". My photographic eye as well as my tastes and preferences have changed a lot over the years, I've begun second guessing my choices of images to print. This one being a prime example.

I have wanted to print this image for a few years now, but up until recently I hadn't connected up with matting to accommodate the 11"x17" format, so I stayed with 11"x14". This image was shot to be seen as is, and cropping alters the dimensions enough to lose the original appeal of the old wood, and bright sunlight contrast. I  made the negative image using the Kallitype <curve> I created in Paintshop Pro x9, [Photoshop for photography] That curve has a normal reciprocal print time of ten minutes, give or take a minute on either side, depending on the highlight to shadow ratio. I had thought this printing would be what I had envisioned it to be. Turns out, now, I see it as too contrasty, as there are a lot more wood textures in the middle of the image, that are now in zone 2, instead of zone 3 where I want them.

All of which means, I will be printing this image again. I have already reprinted another negative , using another curve I made for platinum/palladium printing; Na2 <curve> this is a softer, shorter density range, negative. The print time will be very close to the current one, at ten minutes, as the highlights in the image won't be altered all that much, perhaps just a bit. What will be far more visually apparent will be the middle  tones, where all the wood texture resides. I am intending on altering the middle tones a lot, the  zone 2 areas will be zone 3 areas, the zone 4s will be closer to zone5, zone 6 will be slightly darker and zone 7 will be the highlight area I will be printing to.

Palladium toned Kallitype
"Old Wagon Wheel" ~ 11"x17"
Mesilla, New Mexico

Photography & Art ~ A perspective

This being a blog, I feel there is freedom to discuss issues without posting new work, as has been the focus of this page in the past. When I began blogging on photography, I covered various areas of photography, including processes, practices and functional testing methods. I also was posting the print images I was making at the time. That process has brought me to my current position in photography, as a photographer and a printer. interestingly enough, it follows directly Dr Wayne Dyer's Dictum; "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change". The most powerful tool at one's disposal, in life.

I bring that up as it affects how I perceive the photographic process, and how I want to utilize it. Photography has been in my blood since I was 13, in 1961, firing off my first black & white shots of the world, fascinated by both. Something about seeing a world in b&w, even then, was comforting to my eyes. It wasn't the real world. It represented the real world with beautiful gradations of grays. It has been a good number of years, with thirty years of commercial photography in the interim, to basically arrive back to that point of perception, of wonder, and deeper appreciation of the b&w image. I specialized in black and white photography when I had a commercial studio in the 1980's, it was still being regularly used. The final decade of commercial work was Event Photography, weddings, Quinceaneras, Proms, sports teams, Baseball Player Card photos, Sororities/Fraternity portraits, and special occasions. Everything in that work was all about the client.

I was fortunate to have been able to build a custom darkroom, designed for hand coated printing. For me, printmaking. That four year period produced ten printed portfolios of work, in four print mediums, with two mixed groupings. In that time, I wrote a book on each of those four processes, with the mixed processes within those books. And that, has changed the way I look at things, photographically. 'Producing, now, is something entirely different than when I began. When I began there were hundreds of images in my head, all wanting to be represented in their best form. A good amount of those images were shot thirty-five years ago, a much different period in my photographic life. Another thing to come of my printing over that period was the way I perceive my work.

When I began making hand coated prints again, four years ago, the focus was on building a clean portfolio. Then another, followed by another, and another book. The portfolios began with my earliest images, as Kallitype prints, in an edition of (5). Then came the Tombstone  portfolio of palladium prints in an edition of (3). As the portfolios progressed, my perspective progressed, to wanting only a very limited number of copies. The editions continued to decline to one of (2), before I came to realize this was telling me, everything. All the prints I make now are unique. There are several reasons for that.

Considering my age, in my seventh decade of life, with galleries chuck full of black and white photographers, of every stripe, then pandemic closing down pretty much everything, having editions of prints isn't a good idea. Then there's the commercially viable collectable value, based on how many prints in circulation, and the fewer the better for the buyer. Perhaps it is the sum of the above propositional argument, the simple truth being my choice now for making only unique prints comes down to my own way of looking at my prints.

There is always the expected way of making a black & white print, but b&w photography is very malleable, something stressed in the first book. A black and white image can be printed in almost endless variations upon the theme. Each iteration being viable, if, the printer wants it so. The classical black and white print as I came to know it derives of master works, such as Edward Weston. He sets a pretty high bar for fine printing. The eight definable tonalities, from deep black [dMax] to crisp white [zone 8] When I began, that was the focus, making a full scaled black and white image. That morphed into warm toned images printed in palladium, then gum and gum over palladium. Each print taking longer and longer to make.

That, was the process of change. When I intend to make a print now, I spend a good deal of time looking at images until I see the right one. I mean seeing it, as how it is to be printed and how that would look. The image is scrutinized for its design, its representation of the light, the chiaroscuro effect. All elements that make up what will be the final image seen by the viewer. Before that can take place, the printer must be able to see the final print as desired, in order to control the elements of the printing process that shape and control the end result of the printed image. If that image can't be seen, there is not trail for arriving anywhere.

I suppose what I'm saying is simply, I'm beginning to see my work in a different way. Each print is a jewel, a creation that has to be perfect. I don't print for expected tonalities, the eight tonal range print. What I'm interested in now is creating the Pictorial Effect. Shaping the image in such ways as to create the mood and lighting that is desired. I believe the lighting of the image is everything. Lighting not only sets the mood and structure of the image, it shapes the textural quality of the image and how the lights reflects off objects. It is the shaping of the printed image, that defines the printer, makes it unique, recognizable.

The summation of the above thought, was a journey every photographer/print-maker will experience if, they wish to use the term Art in reference to their work. Art, should be unique and rare. If their are umpteen or endless print copies, then it would be difficult for anyone to call that art. That would be commercial photography, and that, is what photography is all about. Take a shot, print it, then sell as many copies as you can. But that, is not Art. And that, is the beauty of having a blog. I can post my thoughts of photography and art. With that said, good energy to your photographic works.

g. Michael Handgis Photography