From: Dave Rose (cactuscowboy@bresnan.net)
Date: 07/25/03-09:42:25 PM Z
Greetings from Big Wonderful Wyoming,
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christina Z. Anderson" <zphoto@montana.net>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2003 3:38 PM
Subject: Re: Gum Pigments
> Man oh man, leave the list for a day and look what happens! I wanna be
Mae
> West in that Best of Show movie, if there's a role for it (oh, whoops, I'd
> need a boob job). Or Jane Fonda. Mark Nelson, have any ideas? (if you
say
> I look like Lily Taylor I'll punch you.)
>
> Dick, hate to say this, but in agreement with you, our revered William
> Crawford, even, has info in his book about colors not to use. Throughout
> history the "baddies" were the chromium pigments, said to interfere with
the
> process, Prussian blue being incompatible with the cadmiums (which does
> fade), aniline colors which would stain, tube pigments whose fillers would
> interfere with the process or create staining, Emerald green is poisonous
> (as if we are going to drink our pigment) etc. So, yes, this was a myth I
> totally believed in, and said myth was debunked on this list time and time
> again over the last 6 months. B.S.M.--before Stuart Melvin :) (that's a
> joke, see the smiley face). In fact, around the turn of the 1900's these
> pigments were all used in gum.
I don't bother wasting time using pigments that are fugitive, poisonous or
weak. Those faults are a good enough reason for me to say that certain
pigments don't "work". Ultimately, it's a matter of opinion and personal
choice.
> Contrary to Judy and Jack's opinion about old books being wrong,
> intentionally or not, I find that most errors or myths about gum printing
> have been in the latter 20 years of the *last* century, and NOT during the
> end of the 1800's and early 1900's. In my opinion that is because during
> that time period of about 30 years around the turn of 1900, many many
people
> were actually DOING gum and madly talking about it! Instead of doing
other
> alt processes, dabbling in gum, and not taking the time to waste
paper--just
> for the hell of it.
Thanks for the historical perspective Christine. I'm also an avid student
of photo history. It's tiring to read modern authors/publishers who slam
long-dead past authors in a thinly veiled attempt to establish themselves as
the new 'gum experts'. I've personally seen many of the original gum prints
from the turn of the century, made during the pictorial photography era. (I
haven't been stuck in the hinterlands of Wyoming forever). Seeing is
believing. Finely detailed gum prints exhibiting excellent tonality and
contrast are nothing new. Study the history, make dozens/hundreds of gum
prints and you'll understand that so-called "new processes in gum" are a
bunch of hype.
> Livick, too, promoted this myth with his adherence to Linel/Sennelier
> Pigments. I bit on this one. It was our own Katharine Thayer who first
> turned me on to M. Graham pigments--cheap, high quality, pure. It has also
> been Katharine's intense questioning of my scientific process that has
> forced me to correct and prove myself before adding to the existing gum
> mythology.
I'm not familiar with Livick, but I'm surprised that he'd recommend
Sennelier pigments. My experience with 9 different Sennelier dry pigments
was disappointing at best. In fact, half of the Sennelier pigments I tried
were crap, a waste of time and money. Loaded with filler and very weak.
Was Livick using tube pigments?
> I do think that we have been establishing some bottom line gum truths here
> *on this list* with the caveat that YRMV. Now, hopefully, Stuart and Clay
> and Kerik will add to this burgeoning basis by being vocal or more
> vocal--about gum in particular (in other words, Kerik and Clay, if I
> remember correctly, post mostly about platinum, right?).
>
> <Dick said> Not only any brand, but colors that "don't work" thus leading
to
> pigment
> > testing to see which ones do and how much to use etc. Not having printed
> > gum in about 25 years I follow these discussions with some amusement.
> > Stephen Livick is big on gum brands but I think much credit has to be
> given
> > to him for getting Stuart and the others going as they did get their
start
> > when we had an on-line class taught by Stephen Livick on the B+S
> discussion
> > group a couple of years ago.
>
> >But more importantly he has taken up the cudgel and expended a
> > great deal of time and energy researching and experimenting with the gum
> > process. Stuart has worked over two years full time perfecting the gum
> > process.
> > The only thing I am sure about is gum printing will never be the same.
> > --Dick
"gum printing will never be the same". This is the epitomy of HYPE! All
due respect Dick, but coming from a guy who admittedly hasn't printed gum in
"about 25 years", this is laughable, laughable! Hey, a lot has happened in
a short 25 years (or two brief years as the case may be).... someone came
along and made gum prints twice as good as yours. Whoo Hoo! Guess what?
It was already done 100 years ago!
I haven't had the luxury to devote "two years full time" to gum printing,
but I've been at it for well over ten years. I have no reason to question
Stuart's ability to make beautiful gum prints, but from what I've read, his
process is far from perfect. IMO, several aspects of Stuart's procedure are
cumbersome and time consuming. For example, what a pain in the hiney it
must be to weigh and mix dry dichromate into every batch of emulsion.
Filtering the emulsion prior to application? That suggests problems in
mixing pigment into gum. On that subject, here's a great tip for my friend
with the "tennis elbow/spanking the monkey/mixing gum" tendonitis... try an
electric stirrer, it works great.
> This is a statement that hits dear to *my* heart, and probably others on
> this list, too, who have shared deeply about the process. Time and
> energy??? How about money, to the tune of $738 on arcane books ALONE over
> the last year?! I was so thrilled to have met Art Chakalis at APIS and
find
> a kindred soul who actually was as anal about chasing down a process
> (Fresson, in his case) as I am! Now he's just being busy finding Sandy
King
> large format IR film!
>
> If I were to count up the hours of testing and sharing on this list that
I,
> personally have done, over the last 7 months, probably toooo much sharing
> even, and some of it confusing to some other members occasionally, and
> certainly much of it poo-pooed....or the amount of sharing about gum that
> Katharine, Dave, Judy, Keith, Jack, Sandy, Sam, and others have done, it
is
> hard not to be sensitive when one person is praised as the "greatest new
> thing". Kinda like my mother in law who says to me last night, "....my
> favorite great grandson..." in referring to the one of the three that is
not
> mine. Credit needs to be given where credit is due. And that includes
> giving you and Melody credit for putting on APIS--I'm sure sometimes you
> wonder, "Why bother..."
>
> If "gum will never be the same" it will be because of the contribution of
> many--HERE--on this list, willing to take the time and contribute, and NOT
> hold back their secrets. Change takes collaboration. And I guarantee you
> that Stuart, himself, will echo this sentiment, saying that the support
and
> testing of Clay and Kerik got it all to where it is now--in fact, he said
as
> much in his talk.
The aforementioned hype, combined with the "holding back secrets" approach
is especially irksome, to me at least. Worse yet when the "secrets" are the
same old 'been there, done that' routines that any seasoned gum printer
already knows and practices.
> It's a thankless task, this gum research. Do we ever hear about Sucrow
and
> Beauregard, nowadays, as contributing to the gum process? (As if it
doesn't
> happen in platinum, too.)
No. A Google search came up with zero hits on "Sucrow Beauregard". I'm
listening, what can you tell us?
> And in reference to gritty imagery vs. fine detail, ya do gum bad, ya get
> grit; ya do it right, ya get fine detail. It is not hard to get fine
> detail, even tho this myth is promoted time and time again.
Right. It seems that old myths die hard. I'm kind of "out of the loop",
having lived in Wyoming for the past five years, but my general impression
is that very few people are actually doing serious gum printing nowadays.
> However, the way you get to the end product ultimately doesn't
> matter--museum walls are not going to care about whether we roller on or
> brush on our pigment, or that we used lemon juice or ammonia in our
> sensitizer to make the sensitizer react differently. The only one who
might
> care about that is Dusan Stulik when analysing the image with his
> spectro-microscopy (?) thingy (Howard Efner, I need you here...).
> Chris
> PS I'm itching to talk about staining and some things I've found, but I
> think I'll wait a few weeks til APIS dust settles.....
>
>
OK, let's talk about staining.
Best regards,
Dave Rose
Cactus Cowboy
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : 08/07/03-03:34:50 PM Z CST