Re: Learning

John

I thought that was an open forum where could contribute to the discussion at
any time.

In answer to your question a guy called Steinbock got me started in gum. He
made small monochrome single eexposure gum prints with a wide range if tones in
the style of the 'little gem' from the thirties. All I learnt from him was
that one needed gum and dichromate. Peter Marshall decided to have go at it. He
got me some dichromate and already had some gum arabic from my water-colour
painting. I worked out the proportions and the pigments and the papers for
myself to be able to make 20 x 16 multicolour gum prints that good enough to get
prints into international exhibitions and earn me RPS distinctions.

It was only when I was asked to run workshops running a range of alternative
processes that I made a point of researching other processes and also gum. I
was good that I had not read a book on gum printing as the ones I found seemed
to contain so much overcomplication and nonsense that I could hardly believe
it. Storing particular levels of hue of pigmented gum in a range of bottles and
measuring the pigment from the tube in mm were kind of nonsense I just found
laughable. The manuals certainly did not help in making good gum prints. As i
went back over the years I saw the same nonsense being repeated from decade to
decade and from century to century. There was one book with an amorphous blob
that had apparently resulted from multiple exposures. I was told that sixteen
exposures were needed to make a good gum print with a good range of tone but
this was only because the author did not understand the relationships between
the various factors probably through lack of experience,

The book I did find, for which I have great deal of respect, was 'The Keepers
of Light'' which provided a guide to our workshops but we tested everything
first and sometimes went down a different path as a result.

If you are not ready to learn and experiment you have given up on life. Over
the years we have used 'oddities' in workshops to explore things further. This
led to our retro-invention programme where we developed new and improved and
more simple ways of making cyanotypes and chrysotypes, established a good
theory of how the first photograph was made by making in camera asphaltum
prints although all the academic literature said it was impossible. The academics
had never done it ! We also had some fun seeing how we would have photographed
a moving horse a la Muybridge using 12 10 x 8 cameras and a polo pony ( see
the web site). That was fun and I was told that i was one of the most
enlightening educational experiences one lecturer in photography had ever had.

We also founded APIS, set up new conferences on the part science has played
in the development of the art of photography, this is called 'The Object Glass
of Science' We hold this at Oxford University and this September we are
combining it with APIS. This July we are having a conference at Durham Cathedral
called 'The Light from the Darkness' where we will be able to see some of the
finest platinum prints ever made.. We have had weekends looking into how Julia
Margeret Cameron made her prints and how women practised photography in the 19C.
We keep learning.

You are right John. one must stay ready to learn and to question what the
gurus say.

Terry

In a message dated 6/4/06 11:15:46 pm, john.grocott403@ntlworld.com writes:

>
> TK wrote
>
>  
>
> ''When I started gum printing as there was no one to teach me how to make
> gum prints, let alone the large multi-colour prints I had in mind, I had to
> learn from a lot of my own mistakes. A scientific empirical approach.''
>
> .....................................................
>
> It would be enlightening and useful, also, to know how  Terry  first
> learned about gum printing and also the first
>
>  book(s) he read to gain a basic knowledge of materials and techniques.  Of
> course, we all learn from our mistakes and I believe we should realize that
> others may wish to do the same. The problem is that, theoretically, a
> person may think that he has become so experienced and knowledgeable that no
> mistakes are ever made and so the ability to learn ceases.
>
>
Received on Sat Apr 8 07:36:29 2006