Re: Tri-Curious Seeks Other Tri-Quad Curious Gummists
Do we want balance? Yes I think that a reasonably balanced print should be ONE of many options obtainable by this process. Sure, it's at the extreme end of the gum spectrum, the other end I imagine is toward minimalism, expressionism or into complete abstraction. But who says there wouldn't be a use for a well balanced print in any of those styles? True maybe only the artist would know -- but to thine own self be true. The two photographers which I've been looking at for inspiration are the early gum work of Steven Livick (which I was lucky enough to see first hand at a local gallery) and the tri-colour glass plates of Prokudin-Gorskii. A lot of the Prokudin-Gorskii work for those who don't know has been "re-created" digitally from the original glass plates (at the Library of Congress site). They were meant to be colour projections, I'm not sure if they were ever printed. It seems gum would have been an option in 1905. While Livick's are almost photographic, the Prokudin-Gorskiis have the sense that they are almost photographic but unravelling at the edges and randomly at certain points within the image. I'm quite taken by them. I think it's that "almost" quality that actually gets me. I wonder if it wasn't behind some of the "almost" style I see in Lorretta Lux's current work. ~m > 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. >
|