Re: Could someone summarize that gum up or down discussion?

Christina & all

I fear I wont be able to add much to what as already been said on this new
kind of gum prints except may be that it seems very promissing indeed. I
think we are all newbies on this one to a certain extent.

My first concern was about the archival properties of the plastic used for
the print but Ryuji as settle the matter on this.

Peter would like to transfer the image on paper, is it possible? I surely
hope so, maybe it can be done in a similar fashion as it is in the carbon
process...

Now your own concern about the short exposure scale of gum made me think of
using what as been learned for carbon again. May be if we used the same kind
of concentration of dichro as in carbon printing may be this would work fine
ie longer exposure scale and possibly even some relief???

The problem that arrise with multiple exposures and indirectly with
tri-color gums could be solved by transferring each layer on paper...

If the image can be transferred on paper may be we would be able to exposed
the emultion from the front as usual and we should also be able to add
layers at will???

All this is highly speculative of course but if it can be made to work, well
I think it would deserve that we wrote down the date this all started and
the names of the people involved especially Marek, for the future, we never
know. Just in case someone think: "I think my name should be there" stop
thinking immediately my name doesn't belong on that very short list.

Regards and many thanks to Marek persistance.
Yves

----- Original Message -----
From: "Christina Z. Anderson" <zphoto@montana.net>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca>
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2006 9:50 AM
Subject: Re: Could someone summarize that gum up or down discussion?

> Good morning!
>
> In reference to Marek's back exposed print on plastic, what conclusions
are
> you all drawing from this, could someone please summarize?
>
> Since it was initially a test to prove the notion of top down hardening,
if,
> in fact, the dichromate in a brushed on coat "sunk" to the bottom of the
> brushed on coat and therefore lurked near the surface of the paper,
wouldn't
> exposing from the back therefore still support both theories--either top
> down hardening or hardening where the dichromate lurks? Just wondering...
>
> Tell me that NO ONE is saying that you cannot achieve this tonality with
gum
> from front exposure, please please please. I fear we are revisiting the
> arguments around Pouncy 150 years ago that have been severely disproven
> since.
>
> Tell me, instead, that you all are just finding a way to successfully
print
> contone on plastic? If so, kudos to Sandy, Marek, and Katharine for
pursuing
> this idea. The bummer may end up being that you can only do this one coat
> because the next coat you will be exposing through the previously hardened
> layer which in turn will hold back light in the shadows...or so it is
said,
> as I have not done this so forgive me in advance if I am passing on a
myth.
>
> One last thing, since gum is a short scale process, making a digital
> negative curved to that short scale will therefore print a fully tonal
> image, so personally I feel that a lot of the problems with gum printing
in
> the 1800's were due to not having the right negs for the process. If they
> had overexposed and underdeveloped their negatives back then to contract
the
> zones they would have avoided a lot of this "gum doesn't do halftone"
> stuff...
>
> But how exciting that the community of the list is working together from
all
> parts of the globe to hash out this stuff!!
> Chris
>
Received on Sat Apr 15 20:01:42 2006