It’s been a long time…
Wow! It’s been a year since I posted to this blog…I’ll have to do better going forward.
I just wanted to put down some of my thoughts as I begin to change my tack, artistically.
First with regards to printmaking: I’ve been casting for a more expressive way to present my work over the last few years, experimenting with canvas, back-lit film and other “cutting edge” techniques, generally to no avail. While I am able to produce fine (in my opinion, call me out on this if I’m wrong, friends) works of art, I fear they do not inspire, as in inspire the patron to their pocketbook. A family member and exhibiting artist even inquired as to whether I’d considered painting, to which I had no reply. I’m a photographer, I thought…trained by painters, yes; but a photographer. My confidence in my artistic vision is strong (perhaps too strong, but that’s another article), but my presentation is weak, in a number of ways.
So I am shifting my focus (no pun intended) a bit in both my photography and printmaking, and use this opportunity to push myself artistically to produce more sublime and expressive output. I’ve been trending toward film ever since seeking camera movements to fix convergence issues shooting architecture. I fell in love with the level of detail you get out of a good 16 bit drum scan of a 4×5 (in) or 6×9 (cm) hunk of film. I will continue to shoot more medium and large format film, in addition to my D90 which my boss, an avid nature photographer, is already getting ready to upgrade out of. My planned next film camera is a wide angle, fixed-lens 6×9 all mechanical rangefinder whose design hasn’t changed substantially since it was introduced in 1972 (look up Texas Leica).
As to my printmaking, I’ve just received the Platinum starter kit from Bostic and Sullivan, along with some paper, developing trays and a leftover HID lamp setup from previous basement tomato growing experiments 
, will begin to work on producing handmade contact prints from digital negatives. I settled on platinum process for a number of reasons:
- The compounds are fairly benign in the concentrations used, both to the artist, and the environment, especially when compared to silver gelatin processing. Simple safe handling practices and availability of product in suspension virtually eliminates the chance of exposure to the potentially dangerous forms of the compounds.
- Platinum and Palladium are extremely stable, meaning the prints will last as long as the paper beneath it holds up. They also produce a greater dynamic range than silver gelatin, producing in the highlights a more luminous appearance.
- The main issue with Pt process when it was originally in use was controlling contrast was difficult without paying a price in quality, short of going back and shooting the negative again (not!). Today I can tailor an output curve to produce a proper negative for the print. If I need to tweak anything, I can do it in Photoshop instead of fiddling with the chemistry, giving me more control of the process.
This is an ambitious move for me, stepping away from the safety of giclee printing, or for that matter announcing I’m giving it a try before I’ve produced my first print. Pt/Pd printing is not widely seen as one of the easier mediums to master. I very well may not find that I feel fully expressive in the medium, but I’m giving it a shot, and I’ll be posting my results in this blog as I go.
It won’t be another year ’till my next entry. Thank you for your interest,
- trace
