Re: Tri-Curious Seeks Other Tri-Quad Curious Gummists
Actually, Michael, I noticed your question, sitting alone by the side of the road for several days, and really wanted to offer an answer, except I didn't have a clue. I suspect that Chris's current reply, if it doesn't cover all possibilities (& what could?) gives a good overview -- besides the specifics she mentions, we get the gist....... I was looking for a little mentoring, a little TLC even a swifted kick in the pants in the right direction would have been appreciated. I got the cold-shoulder. What a difference a day makes though. I'm over it. I know, we can't all be on the same page at the same time. (Save for one person who contacted me off-list -- and she knows who she is.) What's my point? I'll the ask the question again: does anyone have a method or workflow for "balancing" colour gum work? Or do they bother? Success stories or failures (usually the more interesting of the two). I'd like to hear them. Most of my own gum printing has been from black and white negatives, which I render sometimes in monochrome, but more often in *fake* real color, as described in P-F & probably on this list (tho now that I'm photographing in color, I expect to have to deal with *real* color seps). But I have a larger question: Do we WANT color balance? Chris implies that "off" color effects have a graphic role. That is, when she likes/ wants them. And when she doesn't, she changes colors, or adds some. Which again makes gum printing like painting... you see what you've got & proceed accordingly. Though Michael's question makes sense --at least from one who's done color photography where "color balance" is an issue. When I began gum printing it was so weird and arcane that the notion of color balance never came up. Color seps, if any, were made with color filters under the enlarger, omigod. I had a student who did that, and the rest of the class swooned. (Then we split a few rails and walked 30 miles to school barefoot through the snow.) Actually, though, we still had Dye Transfer, where "color balance" was indeed an issue. There were chemicals I probably still have in a drawer somewhere you could bleach tri-colors in the rolling stage with... (Not quite photoshop, but handy.) But I digress...speaking of painting, I quote David Vestal's finity 12 (which I ask to be forgiven for mentioning has a very kind story on "Read My T-shirt" -- headed "The wit of the polemical T-shirt"). But the words I expect to remember best, which probabaly belong on a T-shirt, he quotes from "anonymous" (ie, "someone"), who he says said, "Anything can be art, but very little is." more love & kisses, Judy ========================================================================= Read My T-Shirt for President: A True History of the Political Front _ and Back >www.frontandbackpress.com< ........................................................................ A reader writes: "I'd recommend it for a Pulitzer Prize, except I lack the credentials."
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