Re: my first two gum prints

[Katharine Thayer <kthayer@pacifier.com>]

Hi All,
This  seems to me a demonstration of how differently different people  
will view the same image.

I think Little Sister is a nicely made tricolor gum print and a cute  
image, but the other image, the portrait, really speaks to me.    I  
could live with  this image, in fact I keep it open on my desktop so  
I can look at it often.    I like  the colors just as they are;  the  
golden brown light in the face echoes the golden brown light in the  
background, and the pink of the vest provides a subtle color contrast  
while still echoing some of the same hue tones; it brings out the  
light of the face while remaining in the background itself.  To me,  
it's an analogous color scheme that works very beautifully, and  
doesn't need any cool tones to be a well balanced picture.   I was a  
bit sorry to learn that the sweater is actually more purple, which  
would be a different, more complementary and therefore competing  
rather than supporting, color interaction.  Not bad in and of itself,  
but the effect would be different.

But that's the cool thing about gum printing, is that like painters,  
we can think about these questions of how colors work together, and  
like painters, we could even choose colors that work together in ways  
that suit our purpose, rather than represent the actual colors if  
they don't.

Not that  I think Charles should go out of his way to change the  
colors in the original image, if he'd prefer to print it more  
realistically.  My point here is more a general point that comes out  
of the context of other things I've been thinking about recently:   
isn't it great that in gum printing we have the option to express an  
image in whatever colors we want to use (more like a painter than a  
photographer)  without having any obligation to, or being forced by  
technology to, represent the scene in the colors of the original scene.

I agree; if there's no texture in the negatives you've got, there's  
no point in printing them again to try to print texture in.  I don't  
think I quite understood that, at first.

My 2cents,
Katharine




On Sep 17, 2007, at 9:39 AM, ryberg wrote:

>    Many thanks to those who said such nice things about my prints.
>    Even greater thanks to those who offered advice.  It is all  
> carefully noted and will be used, if not on these images, on some  
> others.
>    For those who asked, I'm using the three colors which came in an  
> inexpensive set from Daniel Smith--Hansa Yelow Medium, Perylene Red  
> and French Ultramarine.  The screaming yellow in Little Sister is  
> intentional--her stockings were screaming yellow.  I failed to get  
> her dress a much brighter green to match the real one.  Korean  
> children and many adults wear BRIGHT colors. There is no story  
> behind the image--just a tired little girl at a long public  
> celebration of Budda's birthday.  The overly warm look in Adjuma  
> may well be too warm but, again, it is a warm image with the dried  
> vegitation behind.  Her purple sweater is not quite purple enough.  
> I'm still working on that image, so I can cool it down and see how  
> it looks.
>    As to the several suggestions that I print over the image--I  
> just can't do it.  My small muscle control and my poor eye-hand  
> coordination make hand registration impossible.  I use registration  
> pins and plan all my negatives from the start so I can punch them  
> at one time. The negatives I have show no texture in the hat, so I  
> could reprint forever and not get any. I did try (disaster) a new  
> negative to add some texture to the hat.  A closer inspection of  
> the Photoshop image indicates that the texture in the hat, while  
> present, is pretty pale.  What I am doing now is adjusting the  
> photoshop image to add the texture to the hat and sleeve,  
> reprinting the negs and now the image.  I'll post it when it is  
> done.  I don't work as fast as many of you.
> Charles   Portland Oregon