RE: Houston alt experience highlights

[Robert <rc3@flash.net>]

It was an interesting and fun time at Clay's.  My 4x5 ambrotypes seemed so
small compared to Monte's and Keirk's larger work but it was inspiring to
see large work. I also learned from Mareck  useful methods  for my gum
printing. Thanks Clay for hosting this year's alt. get together.

I attended Chris's gum printing workshop on campus of Steven F. Austin
University.  I also picked up on some more useful information on gum
printing. I am going to change to her method of harding sized paper. I
needed to see how smooth the papers was compared to glyoxal hardening I have
been using. Thank s Chris and Amy for letting me attend the workshop. Both
of you are excellent educators.

Best Regards,
Robert Cockrell

-----Original Message-----
From: Christina Z. Anderson [mailto:zphoto@montana.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 7:35 AM
To: Alt, List
Subject: Houston alt experience highlights

Good morning all!

What fun in Texas.  Clay was an incredible host to close to 30 of us at his 
house.  A bunch of alt listers were there such as Robert Cockrell, Rocky, 
Kerik (who flew in from CA!), Jeremy Moore, Marek (who is NOT short and dark

like I thought he was but very tall and blondish--and adorable, too, 
heheheh), Lee Carmichael (who is very much a man and not a woman), Matt 
Magruder, Michael Mutmansky who DROVE in from PA, Mike Cassell, David Brown 
(5 who are working on a TX church documentary project documenting churches 
100 yr old or more throughout the state) and others who may be on the list 
but lurk/don't post much. I drove in with Amy Holmes George from Nacogdoches

where I was doing gum and mordancage workshops.  She brought 8 of her 
students with, too, and they loved the feedback they got on their work.

We saw some beautiful platinums, gums, silver prints, and wet plate 
collodion, among other lesser represented processes.  In fact, between Kerik

and Monte McCutchen (who flew in from NC!), we got to see HUGE wet plate 
collodion which kinda blew me away.  Monte shoots with a 20x24 camera!  Hold

me back from learning another process. Kerik's wet plates are truly 
amazing--very meditative (but I want his gumoverpd palm trees).  And learn 
from Monte--a large glass plate collodion does not travel well through the 
airport.

What is even better is the stuff you pick up in chit chat and in doing--I 
thought I'd share to benefit those who couldn't stop life for a weekend and 
join us:

1.  portfolioboxes.com to get custom made portfolio boxes

2.  or Marek's use of a complimentary color to tone down a particular color 
in the mix--in other words with his yellow layer neg he may use a purple 
pigment to tone down a yellow....this was really effective in a gum he did 
of Antelope Canyon, where the area of light coming through the rocks was 
brilliantly red-orange in juxtaposition with the rest of the pic which was 
toned down with a green. Believe it or not, I have never done this with a 
gum print but it has great pictorial possibilities to accentuate particular 
areas of a gum print by a little judicious brushing. Marek's gums have taken

a huge leap since I first saw them in a traveling portfolio.

3.  or watching Clay use a roller with gum--I have used it before and found 
the brush far superior; HOWEVER, when I saw HIM roller on, I saw that he 
keeps rollering back and forth and hither and thither until the entire layer

smooths out.  I was rollering up to a point and not beyond and should have 
kept going.  Which goes to prove that the old adage "it didn't work" is 
never proof that something, in fact, doesn't work if it does for someone 
else.  There are a couple of Clay's gumoverplatinums I wanted to spirit 
away--one purposely grainy image of a high heeled woman's leg jutting into 
the side of the image, empty dark street park bench, and a couple of 
nighttime empty parking garage scenes.

4.  or using my curved negs I brought with me under Clay's Amertech exposure

unit--which I want to buy now :).  This relates to Keith's question about 
someone giving him their curves for gum.  I use a UVBL unit at home, and 
with Clay's light source we totally overexposed the blue layer, totally 
underexposed the red layer, and the yellow was just right.  It was a great 
visual experience of how different light types vary and how they require 
different work flows, negatives, curves, and color negs, if you want to get 
that techy about it.

5.  "Trophy" aluminum for wet plate or even tintype I would think...

6.  Seeing Clay's darkroom, how he organizes it, his tools, etc. is always 
so instructive.  We each craft our own space--his very organized and every 
inch utilized, mine very tornadoish.

7.  Artistico is 4.5 stops of transmission density if used as a neg.

8.  The fro has got to grow...

etc. etc. including a few sentences that I can't read because of my terrible

handwriting...

I thank Clay for being such a gracious host!
Chris





Christina Z. Anderson
Assistant Professor
Photo Option Coordinator
Montana State University
CZAphotography.com