A Treatise on Photogravure

The Internet is a wonderful place. Really. I am carrying around on my vacation a 1974 reprint by the Visual Studies Workshop of Herbert Denison’s A Treatise on Photogravure (in Intaglio by the Talbot-Klič Process). It is available used at a price of $275 (for the reprint) at Amazon.com today, which may put it out of [...]

Wash out

Let’s talk about washing out the Toyobo KM73 photopolymer plate. On Jon Lybrook’s recommendation I eventually purchased the Boxcar Press brush. Dianne Longley talks about any flat soft bristle brush being usable for washout. After constructing my own using taped together bristle paint brushes from Home Depot, I decided to buy the Boxcar brush. At [...]

Paul Strand

I just finished watching the documentary Strand: Under the Dark Cloth. The commentary went “[Late in life] Paul Strand went to Ghana… where he used a handheld camera for the first time.” Yeah, what looks to be Graflex RB single lens reflex.  Cataracts waylaid him briefly in his old age but still he printed – [...]

Printing the Crown Point Press Way

I’ve come down with something and am mostly staying warm and catching up on reading. Jon Lybrook mentioned in passing that Crown Point Press was having a sale, and that he really loved their books. I have to say, if it wasn’t for Jon’s whole-hearted recommendation I would, as a rule, pass up books whose titles [...]

Annals of My Glass House

Julia Margaret Cameron is a hero of mine. She is an inspiration to follow one’s passion no matter when in life you find it, to find supporters for one’s endeavors, and to make progress in the pursuit of art through determination and hard work. The Internet is a great resource for photography and opens up [...]

The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes

While Arentz’s work is phenomenal in its focus on Platinum and Palladium Printing, on the other end of the spectrum is a compendium covering many alternative processes. Perhaps the most comprehensive recent text is Christopher James’s satisfying The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes. Christopher James seems to be a throwback to the early, heady days [...]

Inks

I spent this evening completing calibration of my polymer photogravure process. Using Mark Nelson’s PDN system I generated process correction curves for the Toyobo Printight KM 73 plates, Rives BFK paper and Charbonnel Universal Black. I was trading e-mails with Jon Lybrook over the course of the evening discussing Takach’s synchronized pressure system (I love [...]

Early Morning is for Printing

I woke this morning at 6AM to catch up on printing, turned off the clock and slept for another hour. That said, at 7AM I went to my darkroom, trimmed a steel backed Toyobo Printight KM 73 photopolymer plate to size using a sturdy 18″ Dahle guillotine paper cutter (using the polymer plate on the [...]

Platinum and Palladium Printing, Second Edition

Though someone may comment to tell me I am wrong, it is my feeling that while there are many good texts that describe a variety of alternative photographic printing methods, there are few texts that are comprehensive on one method.  Leading the pack in the latter is Dick Arentz’s Platinum and Palladium Printing, Second Edition. While [...]

Exciting times in Landscape Photography

If there is an exciting time for landscape photography it is sunrise or sunset. It’s 5AM and I’m thinking about Alain Briot’s dictum to “Focus.” It could well apply to me eyes at this moment and my wish for some psychoactive drug like caffeine to make me bigger, stronger, more awake. Here in Death Valley [...]