From: Christina Z. Anderson (zphoto@montana.net)
Date: 04/04/03-09:33:04 AM Z
<Jack Brubaker wrote>Is it posible that the Z process would create an
> emulsion (the gum-pigment) that will be more sensitive on the support side
> and therefore more bonded to the support even in the lightly exposed
areas?
> I don't know. But the idea is tempting.
Jack,
This is an interesting concept. Today I'm gonna mess around with gum
and I'll try this again.
> I have great
> empathy for Betty Hahn's comments in #8 about being frustrated by too
> perfact a print. It doesn't leave room for screwing with it. It becomes
too
> precious. In this regard James' regret for how seldom photography allows
> room for "gesture" strikes a note with me.
> Jack
>
Agreed. We are too quick to dismiss an image because it is technically
imperfect, not taking the time to peer inside and absorb it. I do the same.
We have a student right now bucking the tradition of perfection in BW prints
for a conceptual reason, and it is the talk of the department, let me tell
you! The bottom line has been, does the flatness of the prints prevent the
viewer from even wanting to look? 2/3 of the people say yes, 1/3 want to
take the time to figure out why, within the image, this student chose to
present them in this way. And I have done this with Linda McCartney's
cyanotypes, for instance. I find them too blown out, not fully tonal, and
they don't "do it" for me. I think, wow, she sure doesn't know how to print
cyanos, instead of thinking she may have done this for a reason.
I teach Beginning BW Photo and how to print a perfect print, and grade
on that basis along with other criteria, and yet then at the upper level I
teach students how to wreck a perfect print in Experimental Photography :)
The faculty sometimes jokes, saying, "Oh no, what has Chris done to this
student, now..."
Chris
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