The largest gum prints I have seen were by a guy in South Wales which I saw when
I was called in as an expert when his prints on paper mounted straight onto
wooden frames had split when on display in a gallery. As I am not an expert on
air conditioning I pulled out.
His prints were up to 10 feet high. He applied his emulsion with a yard brush (
so he had no problems with hairs). He used paper negatives cut from the roll.
His studio was a converted church. His camera was the vestry with a lens let
into the wall between the vestry and the church. His models sat on a chair in
the body of the church and were moved back and forth to bring them into focus.
The paper was pinned to the opposite wall of the vestry to the lens to produce a
large in camera negative. The paper negative was then developed on a large wheel
which rotated through a tank of developer, then fixer. When the negatives were
dry they were taped down onto the sensitive pigmented gum paper and left on the
floor of the church to expose. They were developed with the yard brush in situ.
The results were beautiful.
The last I heard was that he had climbed a ladder to close a window in the
church and fallen right through the middle of all his prints, which were leaning
against the wall, breaking his leg in the process.
Terry King