Technology And The Traditional Process Photographer

In one of our posted discussions, we talk about what defines a fine art print. This might be a good example shared with us, by George Smyth and his Bromoil method.

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..George Smyth...
Despite an apparent resurgence of interest in traditional film photography, digital imaging is quickly pushing silver gelatin print creation into the miscellaneous category known as alternative processing. Those of us who have spent a lifetime working with this traditional process may feel a sense of loss, but the truth of the matter is that it can open a new set of possibilities.
For years I have worked with the Bromoil process, which was first popularized about one hundred years ago. Other than the silver gelatin process, it is the only alternative process that allows for projection, as opposed to requiring direct contact of the negative with the paper. As many people have never seen a Bromoil print (I had not seen one at the time I started making them), I will first explain what a Bromoil print is, then explain how current technology can facilitate the process.
The creation of a Bromoil print involves a number of steps. The first is the creation of a traditional darkroom print, but that is used as a guide print to reference at a later time.

A second print is made, normally exposed twice as long as the guide print under the enlarger, and given a grade less contrast. This is the print that will eventually become a Bromoil, but must first be dried overnight.

The following day the print is bleached and tanned. Typical photographic bleaches merely remove the silver from the print, but the type used in this process also tans the print. This means that it hardens the emulsion relative to the amount of silver that was in the print. Areas that held shadow values will have the emulsion hardened considerably, whereas the highlights will have had the emulsion hardened very lightly. The paper must then be dried again overnight.

Finally the print can be inked. To begin, it is first soaked in water for about 15 minutes. This allows water to saturate the emulsion, and will do so relative to its hardening - the softer the emulsion, the more water that area of the print will hold, the harder the emulsion the less water that area can hold.

The paper is then removed from the soak and all surface water is removed, so the only water remaining is within the emulsion. It is laid on a sheet of glass to keep it flat and provide a hard backing. A stiff brush, often made with hog's hair, is tapped on ink-covered tile to charge it with ink, and then with various tapping motions of the brush, the ink is transferred to the paper. As this is done, the highlight areas (where the emulsion holds the most water) reject the ink, while the shadow areas (holding little water) accept the ink. Eventually the paper will dry out and need to be resoaked before more ink can be properly applied.

After several thousand taps of the brush on the paper, the image is ready to be dried, touched up, and displayed.

Digital technology, for me, has an important place to play in the process. As time goes on, the number of papers that can be used with the Bromoil process become fewer and fewer. Older papers, like Kodak Ektalure and Agfa MCC118 are no longer produced, so old stocks become more and more dear. The last thing I want to do is to waste any of this precious stock with test strips and errant exposures.

The ability to create a digital negative means that I can contact print any image that I have taken. Equally important, as a paper like Kodak Ektalure is a single contrast paper, as long as I have matched a curve for it, what I see on my monitor can be reproduced in the darkroom.

The take-away is that a new technology can open capabilities with older technologies. In my own particular case, I will not only be able to create more Bromoil images from my stock before having to rely on more modern, and less capable, papers, but since I do not have to run tests before making a final print, I can be more productive with this time consuming, labor intensive process.
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For more info on this process...http://www.alternativephotography.com/process_bromoil.html
and... http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_early/1_early_photography_-_processes_-_bromoil.htm

Pigmented Wax Prints

This week's blog, features another member, Walt Jones and his method, adding another way of presenting images, an ongoing discussion on our group....

from Walt...
Finding the (wax) print

Plenty of people will disagree with me on this, but I’ll claim that the vast majority of so-called “fine art prints” come from a pretty narrow set of methods. On the digital side, you mostly have your Lightjet print and your pigmented ink print. Film, having been around a lot longer, gives us a slightly wider gamut of silver prints, platinum prints, various chrome prints, cyanotypes, etc, with most of them being slight variations on the same basic ideas. The point is, we’re pretty set in our ways. One walk through a large event like Photo LA and you’ll probably be able to count on two hands the number of printing methods in use.

I’ve used the mainstream methods as much as the next guy, but I’m also a strong proponent of experimentation and alternate processes. The question should be, “what medium and process best allows a particular image to find its voice?” If, as a fine art photographer, my prints are what will ultimately be my art, then I can’t just automatically pump things through the “archival pigmented ink on photo rag” process simply because that’s what photographers are doing at the moment. What happens when you print this image on wood? What happens when you print this image on aluminum? What can I do that will make the image more than just color or value on a surface?

More recently I’ve been experimenting a lot with what I call “pigmented wax prints.” The idea was actually born about from a conversation I had with a gallerist at a portfolio review event earlier this year. In the process of discussing a particular body of work, she again and again kept coming back to the idea of the images needing “another dimension” to really connect in the right way; either in the subject, or the message or the printing method itself. Discussing further, the idea arose of finding a way to actually bring aspects of the subject itself back into the printing method. Obviously, this isn’t something that’s often done. It’d be like printing a photograph of a person on human skin or, certainly less macabre, printing a photograph of a tree on wood. Immediately we’re into the territory of a fairly non-traditional process, but the idea is a solid one: bring the subject full circle. I’d already been toying around with a concept for a series of somewhat abstract photographs using liquid wax as a subject, so it seemed only natural to see if there was a way to bring wax into the actual printing process… a sort of reconnection with the encaustic painting methods popular at various times throughout history.

Thus began a fairly long process of research and experimentation seeing about ten months from the initial concept until I actually held a real print in my hands. I’m not going to share specific details of the final process, but my journey did reunite me with a technology I’d not touched since the early 1990s – solid ink printing. This effectively boils down to a process that combines organic dyes with vegetable waxes, then applied to various media using a method quite similar to that of inkjet printing. From afar the prints, depending on the paper used, are virtually indistinguishable from a standard pigmented ink print. Colors are vibrant, gradients are clean. But up close, there’s a different quality to the print – it actually looks waxy. This is not your standard “photograph” in the least. The subject has been brought full circle.

The original image before printing:

Closeup view of the work print showing the sheen of the wax:

An 8x10 work print created using the wax process on a cotton rag fine art paper:

*Walt Jones: Fine Art Photography* www.waltjones.com

Our thanks to Walt for sharing...
If you would care to share work,technique,philosophy as a Fine Art Photographer..please contact me at my email address..

all images are copyrighted by the artist.Usage without written permission strictly prohibited by law.

Developing Film With Coffee..by Tom Kirkendall

This is the first in a lineup to feature some of our members. Tom is one of our first to join and his method caught my attention. More than a morning wake up..it can do film as well.

(3).................................................(1)

From Tom Kirkendall
A beaker full of Jo

I live in the land where Starbucks Coffee flows more often than rain. With so much caffeinated liquid around there must be something you can do with it besides drink it!?

Through the Fine Art Photography Group on Linkedin I heard about processing black and white film in coffee. I volunteer in the photography class at the local high school where the students are always looking for something wacky to try and this sounded wacky.

There is a lot of info on the web and numerous formulas for giving this a shot. Some of the best advice came from Specialty Color Services Lab (www.color services.com) in Santa Barbara CA. They will process your film if you no longer , or never had, a darkroom to play in. As a bonus they will donate part of the fee to a charity. Way cool.

What do you need……for 1 roll of 35mm...................................(4)
5 large tsp. of instant coffee…..not decaf
3 ½ tsp. of sodium carbonate. I got a life time supply at a pool
supply store
½ tsp. of Vitamin C powder or finely chopped 2 1000mg tablets
2 beakers or glass cups to mix the soup in
1 measuring cup 8 oz to 16 oz
And all the other normal darkroom stuff to process film with like
stop bath, fixer, film washer, photo flow, drying rack and a loud
music system.

Time to brew.
A) Mix the Vitamin C and the coffee in a beaker. Add 6 ounces of HOT water ( 170 - 200 degrees). Stir until everything is dissolved.

B) In a separate glass mix up the sodium carbonate with 6 oz of warm to hot water stirring until dissolved........................................................(5)

C) Let the two mixtures cool in there own beaker until almost at processing temp. I use 70 degrees.

D) Mix the two together ( must use in 30 min.) cool it to
processing temp and pour into loaded processing tank. If you
chopped up your own V- C you may want to pass it through a
coffee filter it strain out undissolved bits.

E) Be sure the tank is full to keep down foaming during agitation.
Agitate for the first minute then about 5 seconds every 15
seconds. Do not be afraid to agitate to long. A JOBO processor
May be a good tool for this formula using continuous agitation.
Process for 15 min. as a starting point. Your time will be?????

F) Stop bath ( I use water), fix, wash and dry as normal to you.

So the results! I did two rolls. I roll of Ilford 120 HP5+ (with a plastic Diana Camera) and one roll of 35mm Arista Ultra 400. I cut the ISO in half for each film and was not afraid to over expose from there. Each film came out a little flat in contrast with a tight granular almost rocky grain structure. Not unpleasing, but not wacky enough to put it into its own category of “wow cool”. I liked the results of the 120 roll better, results may vary. I could see where it would be fun to do a series of portraits of people …..say…..in a coffee house. Print them up and stain the prints in the left over developer??............................................................................................................(6)......

Sample prints, 1+3 is the 120 Ilford film and 4-6 the 35mm Arista Ultra.

Tom Kirkendall

Thank you Tom for sharing

If you would like to contribute an article for our blog, please contact me via my email..

Limited Editions

During Photo Miami, I had the chance to speak to a few of the gallery owners and reps. I asked about Limited Editions. Here is one rep who graciously responded.

My thanks to Deborah for her input.

Approaching Galleries

All the various presentations and sizes of photography, I saw this week,made me wonder how does one present their images to a gallery for consideration? After all, can you walk around with a few 40x50 prints mounted on aluminum with plexi or 30x40 steel prints much less mail them?

So I asked a few owners at Photo Miami and also at One Red Dot and here is the general consensus. First, an email or formal letter with an online link or URL address where the work can be viewed. The agreed that the image rather than the presentation should stand out enough to warrant a further review. Along with first intro, a bio,artist statement,and any history that the work gathered as in other showings. The work's presentation should be proposed eg. "printed on wood, 40x50, coated in resin.." some info on the method helps as well, with a possible printed leave behind for their file.

They all said that if the first approach was favorable then the next step would be to see an actual finished piece the way it will be presented. It is possible to have one or a collection photographed and sent or linked to for viewing the scope and type of presentation especially if it is a coherent body of work. All said they deal in limited editions but that is another post soon to come.

In Verso stamps

At the Red Dot Art Fair, another event during the Art Basel Week here in Miami, I had the pleasure of seeing a great booth space from Modernbook Gallery.

Among some of the great works from newer and older photographers were a collection from a master, Fan Ho. See his work here. One of the things I too notice of and wanted to share is the back of his vintage prints that show a record of where they have been. Like stamps in a passport, the voyages of an image.

Photo Miami 2009 #2

Stunning as this year's Photo Miami is, this work perhaps stunned me the most. Presented by Irvine Contemporary in Washington DC. it stopped me in my tracks. It was the quality, the material,the presentation,the feel,a reach into the past, the fact that it wasn't digital anything but an old method mastered and so well presented. If only I had money!! But Phil if you are willing to trade..CALL ME!

This I took from his blog and the press release better explains his technique.

I had a informative chat with his Rep on " What is a Limited Edition" which will post later..but for now on with more show..and party of course.

Phil Nesmith’s Flight Patterns is a series of new dryplate photograms created with silver nitrate emulsion on black glass plates.

Nesmith’s new series of images evoke allegories of flight, fragility, evanescence, materiality, and time. Because photograms require the presence of an actual object to cast shadows or allow light to penetrate through a translucent material, the resulting image records a moment in time when something interrupted light and space on the photosensitive medium, but without a camera lens.
http://philnesmith.wordpress.com/

For a press release from his gallery.. http://irvinecontemporary.com/release.php

Art Basel Week

Once again Art Basel had descended upon us and brings with it some very cool images and interesting photographers as well. To start with are three I saw last night,Claudia Calle at Fabrika art Space showing some very neat work,"Republic of China" prints on stretched canvas and some of her award winning series,


"Living in Silence" prints on wood substrate. (forgive my reproduction)..More of her work can be found at her site http://www.claudiacalle.com I found her work in the images on the left,"Republic of China" to be of most interest and her mark stood out on them.

The second show sponsored by One Model Place..."Eyes Wide Shut" was really well done, a collection of various photographers from Weston to Steve McCurry, to Elliot Erwitt to name a few. However the bulk of the show was from two photographers, one who I really enjoyed chatting with, Jarmo Pohjaniemi..a film lover..and a shooter for Playboy as well! His take on life and art was refreshing and I hope to look forward to developing a freindship. I met his lovely and appealing model Mary Alejo who appears in his prints shown here... I also hope to develop a professional friendship with her as well and while that might sound forward,I do have a series of mine that would be perfect with her in it..left is the both of them..see you Friday night at the party!


The other phtographer whom I didn't get a chance to speak with but I will later is Guido Argentini whose work is here,beautifully printed ..


I wish them all good shooting and today I will visit Photo Miami with post soon to come.