Re: Charcoal Prints

Dick and Mark: For what it is worth, Stewart, in the show, was careful to
distinguish between silver prints (and there were some) and charcoal prints.
Since John from London has correctly identified the direct carbon process,
as did Dick, and has stated that Stewart has used the Fresson family for his
printing, I believe that is what it is. Stewart seemed to have had enough
integrity to distinguish between silver prints (as Luminos Charcoal paper
would be) and other. Dick - develop quickly please. Cannot tell whether I
want you to get albumen done first or direct carbon. Jim

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Sullivan" <richsul@earthlink.net>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2004 2:10 PM
Subject: Re: Charcoal Prints

> Mark,
>
> You may well be right.
>
> I am forever getting P.O'd. about photographically illiterate idiots who
> call their inkjet prints "carbon prints" because they use carbon based
> inks. Then there is another branch of idiocy who apparently they want to
be
> in the same league with Josef Sudek and call their inkjet prints "pigment
> prints."
>
> I got a call once from a platinum printer who was equally twisted about a
> show of "platinum" prints in Santa Monica where the guy used a "platinum"
> ink set in his printer and then put brush marks on the edges with
Photoshop
> to complete the fraud. Actually not so much fraud as the gallery owner
said
> what they really were so this guy, like the aforementioned, perhaps had
not
> a clue as to what a platinum print really was.
>
> The shuck and jive is that folks really are not that comfortable with what
> they are doing and look for terminology that obfuscates what the prints
> really are. Cohn prints, giclee prints, piezographs, carbon prints,
> platinum prints, microdispersion prints, Iris prints, and others I can't
> remember, are used in place of the term "ink jet." Everyone knows what an
> ink jet print is so my guess is the other terms are just used to put fog
in
> front of a naive buyer's eye.
>
> The handmade will always have an add-on value because of it human element.
> My first lecture to my classes in alt printing at the local college goes
to
> the heart of the idea of the handmade.
>
> Many if not most come to the class after having taken a digital class. I
> play devils advocate and ask them why do they want to take all this
trouble
> to make hand made alt prints. Most are dumb struck. They have a gut
feeling
> they want to but really don;t know why and can't verbalize it. Santa Fe
has
> a huge art colony and a very healthy fine craft furniture segment. You can
> buy desks and chairs in the $20,000.00 and up range. When I point out that
> much of that fine furniture has dovetails that are cut by hand and could
be
> cut finer and better by a dovetail jig, and that a dimensional drawing
> could be made and the finest handmade rocker could be turned out in
minutes
> on a CMC wood mill-lathe, and in fact Gone With the Wind style staircases,
> once the product of a year's worth of work by a whole crew of craftsmen is
> now turned out in a day by computer driven machines. Why then does the
> handmade furniture piece command such high prices. Because it reflects and
> revels in the idea of craft. hand craft! Most of the students light up at
> this point. In fact our digital department invariably tells students that
> wet photography is dead and that there is no reason to do anything but
> digital now. They came not believing it but not knowing why they didn't
> believe it.
>
> I ramble.
>
> --Dick
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --Dick
>
> At 10:29 AM 3/7/2004, you wrote:
> >Carl,
> >
> >The Luminos Charcoal paper is a beautiful Silver Paper. I have used it
> >with digital negatives and had it toned so that the surface looked like
> >brown sugar crystals, for lack of a better description... one of my
> >favorite Silver Papers.
> >
> >Mark Nelson
> >In a message dated 3/7/04 7:13:34 AM, cweese@earthlink.net writes:
> >
> >
> >>Jim,
> >>
> >>It might be something special, or they could just be making a big deal
> >>out of prints on Luminos "Charcoal" paper. It's a thick, expensive,
> >>textured silver-gelatin paper with a unique look. I've seen shows where
> >>prints on it were presented as though it were more than just another
> >>manufactured silver paper with an unusual surface.---Carl
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >Mark Nelson
> >Precision Digital Negatives
>
>
>
Received on Sun Mar 7 19:28:18 2004