14 Chapters: The Expressive Photographic Print, The Perfect Negative, Film
Testing Procedures, Using Characteristic Curves, Specialty Black & White
Films, Alternative Photographic Printing Processes, Cyanotype, Alternative
Silver Printing Processes, Platinum/Palladium, Gum Dichromate, Approaches
to Color Photography, finishing up with two digital chapters.
John Rudiak has agreed to review the entire book for Post-Factory #2 (and
who better than Rudiak? -- see below). This is the first text that I know
of aimed at "alt" photo, so John's commentary will have many
ramifications, regardless of his "verdict." But gum printing clearly
suffers a special disability in the world at large. Therefore, as a public
service, I address that chapter -- photography without the Great Yellow
Father.
Kodak, for all its heinousness, did, maybe still does, science. Its
theories were/are tested, its research confirmed -- or corrected -- by
scientists around the world. An American Pictorialist, Paul Anderson,
made several wrong assumptions about the mechanics of gum printing circa
1930; he did this so confidently and plausibly that nobody from that day
to this bothered to check (except a few expert gum printers, and nobody
asked them).
So Anderson's famous "gum-pigment ratio test" entered the canon, handed
down from Henney & Dudley, through Crawford and Scopick, and now as
centerpiece of the "Ansel Adams" chapter on gum. (Post-Factory #1 explains
this wacko procedure & why it's wrong, as I will excerpt in an e-mail to
follow.)
Anderson thought he had devised a way to find the ideal ratio of pigment
to gum in an emulsion. Schaefer not only repeats this mistake as holy
writ, he elaborates it, with a chart of the supposed weights of seven
pigments you mix with 20 ml of gum arabic as a "starting point." But rest
assured, even if the Andersonian premise were correct, the figures are
meaningless. The names "lampblack," "alizarin crimson," "monastral blue,"
"burnt sienna" and so forth, do not tell us what we need to know.
Pigments are all mined or manufactured; each company has its own sources,
methods, AND additives. One company's "alizarin crimson" for instance,
even if it were classic alizarin crimson, which it probably isn't,
performs differently from another's. (Winsor Newton "Alizarin Crimson," as
it happens, is now the more archival 1,2-dihydroxyanthranquinine lake PR
83.) "Burnt Sienna" ? I tested the four "better" makes of burnt sienna --
Rowney, Winsor Newton, Holbein and Schmincke. (That was before Daniel
Smith, which is also excellent.) Each behaved differently and was a
noticeably different color.
I also ran a series with ultramarine, a heavy stainer, figuring it for
worst-case scenario. But I found that with a different brand of gum arabic
(tho the same 14 baume) it hardly stained at all. Then the tube ran out
and I switched brands. The new ultramarine stained very little, even with
gum #1. In other words, the Anderson system would, even if true, which
it's not, have to be pegged to the brand of paint and gum.
Then on page 248, Schaefer tells us to "stir the gum arabic solution with
a glass or plastic rod until [the paint is] uniformly dispersed." That's
just exactly what Post-Factory warns you not to do, because, "the most
common cause of screwups in gum printing is mixing emulsion with the back
of a brush, a popsicle stick, a foam applicator, even a 'brush' that's too
stiff, too big or too little, which all sooner or later leave bits of
paint to streak your print" (page 15). Well, I didn't mention glass rod,
did I -- it never occurred to me.
Schaefer is obviously suffering from fear of ferrule, the notion that
dichromate will react with the metal in a brush ferrule. But, as mentioned
on this list long ago (he should have read the archive), you don't dip the
brush in as far as the ferrule anyway. And, as I explain and *explain* in
my gum article, a soft round brush is the easiest, safest way to mix paint
into gum.
Equally unfortunate is Schaefer's advice about using dry pigment. "Powders
must be finely ground with a mortar and pestle to a paste" with a "carrier
solution" of white sugar, gum arabic, glycerol and foto flow, he says. The
formula he cites is from Ralph Mayer's "The Artist's Handbook," by way of
Scopick's "The Gum Bichromate Book, Second Edition." But I'd bet the farm
neither Scopick nor Schaefer ever tried it, because it *increases*
staining in a gum print. It's also beside the point. Mayer includes it for
making your own watercolors, which need a plasticizer. But a gum emulsion
doesn't get worked into veils and washes the way a painting does. Tone
differences come from different degrees of hardening, which let more or
less emulsion wash away.
As for the grinding: pigment comes from the factory more finely ground
than you could ever do by hand. (See the alt-photo archive again.) The
mortar and pestle help surround each particle with gum, but there are less
messy ways to do that.
Other mistakes in no special order: Schaefer says "a correctly exposed"
print will be fully developed in 30 minutes. even Paul Anderson knew
better than that. There's as much variation and finesse in developing as
in any other aspect of gum. He says a "visible latent image" appears and
can be used as "a measure of exposure." Not true -- many mixes have no
visible printing-out effect at all. And another nugget from Paul Anderson,
also passed down reverently through the canon: "The longest scale of
gradation is secured when the coating mixture contains the largest
possible amount of pigment." This may seem logical, but is in fact
backwards. An actual test -- just one! -- would have shown that the
greater the pigment concentration, the shorter the scale. (Issue #2 will
have 21-steps to illustrate.)
Schaeffer also says store your brushes standing in water (on their tips?
oh my!) and dry quickly after washing with a blow-dryer (heat on your good
brush? oh my!). He says you can blow dry the highlights of a print
"selectively... then continue developing the darks normally." I doubt
that -- an irregular hard outline usually forms between dried and
not-dried parts.
He's right when he says gelatin is the best size for gum, but then
announces that formaldehyde should not be used as hardener, unless "you
are skilled in handling chemicals" and "work in a laboratory equipped with
an efficient fume hood," leaving the impression that you could just
gelatin size and not harden -- which stains more than no size at all.
(Needless to say he never heard of glyoxal.) There are some organizational
problems, too, for instance: page 143, "for gum printing, additional
sizing is occasionally needed to prevent staining of the paper," page
236, "virtually all commercial papers intended for gum printing require
additional sizing."
We are inspired by a couple of beautiful gum prints from the 30s and
teens, but the most beautiful contemporary print is by Bernard Plossu,
"Big Sur; 1970." The caption says only, "Fresson prints are handmade from
color transparencies at the family factory in France. They have the
visual presence of an exquisite watercolor." We infer, therefore, that it
is a Fresson, but the book tells nothing about making a Fresson -- so I
don't get the point (happy as I am to see the exquisite image).
What more can I say? A lot, but suffice to add that you could have all the
above wrong and *still* make a beautiful gum print. Like you could get the
facts of life wrong, think cabbage patch, and still make a baby. But you
wouldn't write a chapter about birth control. I hope.
[Rudiak cuts a wide path through photography as teacher (RISD, etc.),
photochemist (Sprint), developer of contemporary and antique processes,
writer of tech lit and editor. He also prints portfolios in platinum and
albumen (for instance) in a place called Taos.]
cheers,
Judy