and Peter Fredrick replies...
> I included it in my teaching programme last year, if you have a nice grainy
> texture tone positive it is ok, but however still a very difficult process
> to work, the fact that we are not doing it this year speaks for itself.
> Get to grips with GB first,that is if one can ever really get to grips
> with that elusive process { humble grovelling apologies Judy I just could
> not help it } :-) then try it.
I'm supposed to resist this invitation?
I read the article in Camera & Darkroom, as well as similar one in View
Camera and another in a publication called Shooters' Rag, and who knows
whereall else, all showing extraordinary, let's say absent-mindedness, by
editors who gave the guy editorial pages with color repros to plug his
book, for none included enough info to do the process. (Tho possibility
exists that editors never noticed, as several such half-derriered how-to's
in last phase of C & D also suggest.)
However, to be blunt, my impression from both text and pictures was of a
clumsy process used to tacky effect, the kind of schmaltzerei that gave
gum printing a bad name the last time around (tho I hate to agree with
Sadakichi Hartman or Edward Weston about anything, they had a point here).
As for ease, if gum bichromate is printed at this level, it's actually
easier (n'est-ce pas Peter?) than this operation, or seems so, as I
confess I didn't buy the book (Focal Press didn't get me on that one) and
haven't done it.
True, we who want nutcase control of gum, following some demented
inner-vision or dream of an ideal go on about gum in these pages. But my
students (and I daresay Peter's!) do beautiful gum prints in a couple of
sessions. Painters. Librarians. English teachers. Actuaries. Honest.
Judy