Re: Pyro article in PT


Carl Weese (cjweese@wtco.net)
Sat, 16 Oct 1999 08:37:36 -0400


Judy,

Thank you for your kind words on the portfolio. The editor and I are
disappointed in the repro quality, but I guess people can at least form
an idea of what the pictures are about. BTW, "Dawn, Shepaug" happens to
be one of Tina's favorites as well.

Sandy and I have been in touch while working on our articles and as you
say the articles are different but we are in close agreement and find
our general results in the lab agree pretty well.

I wouldn't say that platinum is tied to any particular tone
scale--there's a wide range available--but it does lend itself naturally
to a very long and smooth scale. I don't know enough about carbon and
have not seen enough carbon prints to compare/contrast the two processes
in detail. I have heard from students who've done workshops with both of
us that Sandy's prints are wonderful.

There may not be much of a mactch-up between "what's different" about
pyro and the special characteristics of gum. As you say, you don't want
extended range in the neg. Still, replacing silver image with delicate
stain *could* make a visible difference in a gum print, I just can't
predict whether or what it might be.

The dual-purpose character of the approach I discuss in the article is
so seamless that if I were working--say a particular "body of
work"--exclusively in Pt or in silver I would still find pyro useful to
handle subjects with extreme luminance range (high contrast scenes), or
to emphasize subject texture without at the same time raising overall
contrast. "Shepaug" is a good example of a picture where pyro helped to
put strength in the very delicate tonal transitions that exist, while
leaving the whole scene a soft gray that accurately conveys the sense of
the misty dawn light. If I could get Kodak TXT in the right sizes for
all my cameras, I would probably do *everything* in pyro no matter which
way I was thinking of going for the final prints.

As to the last question, I'm afraid what's going on in the illustration
is that they elected to reproduce both Pt and silver versions of the
same negative, and instead of showing how well pyro works for this
purpose they instead showed that their repro isn't up to the task. The
silver print is too dark and heavy and the Pt print is too weak and all
middle gray. C'est la vie. While I'm at it, the illo showing a pyro
negative is too yellow: a good neg should be distinctly more green than
that, but I hope the illo is still some use.

---Carl



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