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

Christina,

 From what you write, I wonder if you have studied the actual prints by
Pouncy and Demachy. Fine though they are, I can't imagine that anyone
could confuse them with a silver print or carbon. They have their own
very different qualities; certainly they were "SO good" but also SO
different. What indeed would be the point of alternative processes if
that were not so? The pictorialists certainly didn't want to make
prints that looked like silver prints, but to clearly differentiate
their art from the commercial work of the day.

The reason why transfer jumped straight into my mind was in part because
of the different nature of the substrate and a hope that the bond
between gum and plastic sheet might be rather less than that between gum
and paper so as to make this possible. Although it is always dangerous
to judge from reproduction, Marek's image seemed to have a more delicate
tonality than I've previously seen in one-coat gums.

Carbon printing as a usable process was patented in 1864 and was a
pretty widespread and popular during the heyday of the gum process which
came later with Demachy and others. I've always assumed that what was
seen as important at that time was the difference between an essentially
commercial and technical process using factory-made carbon tissue and
the hand-coated and locally worked nature of the gum which appealed to
those who saw print-making as artistic expression. The qualities which
these artists were seeking were more aesthetic and spiritual rather than
technical. (We tend to forget that at that time both carbon and platinum
were largely produced using factory-made materials, and not
'post-factory' processes.)

What actually appeals to me about the best carbon prints is actually
hard to pin down. I think it has more to do with the nature of the image
and substrate than more easily measurable aspects such as densities.
Words like 'pearly translucence' try to describe it. Its actually rather
similar to the quality of some of the prints I made many years ago on
the old Record Rapid. I can match (or beat) those prints for density,
make them on similar surfaces either in the darkroom or very recently
from the inkjet with papers such as DaVinci Fibre Gloss. Good prints,
but somehow they lack that particular quality.

I think if you read the controversies over the various print processes
etc in the nineteenth century journals, actually going to see the prints
they were talking about in the RPS collection and elsewhere can
sometimes cause a certain surprise. I've felt it also in more recent
years when some people have handed me their successful one coat gums;
not that they are not successful, but just that they do not match in
terms of technical quality what can be achieved in other processes -
such as silver, carbon, platinum or inkjet. Perhaps exposure from the
back and transfer can narrow that particular gap.

Regards,

Peter

Peter Marshall
petermarshall@cix.co.uk
_________________________________________________________________
My London Diary http://mylondondiary.co.uk/
London's Industrial Heritage: http://petermarshallphotos.co.uk/
The Buildings of London etc: http://londonphotographs.co.uk/
and elsewhere......

Christina Z. Anderson wrote:
>> However put one of your monochrome gums next to a carbon print and
>> tell me that something is not missing from the gum. The most delicate
>> tonal transitions, the infinite gradation of tone are not there in
>> the gum.
>
> AHA. Thank you, thank you Marek, for clarifying the bottom line
> here!! NOW I understand. So the real test will be to make a
> monochrome one coat gum that looks as good, side by side, with a
> carbon print. On paper.
>
> I find this a bit puzzling because, again, back in the lit, there were
> huge discussions where people were ignoring the fact that Pouncy's and
> Demachy's and others' gums were SO good that viewers could not tell
> whether they were a silver gelatin/carbon or a gum. So I have to
> assume from these discussions that it is possible to achieve that
> "carbon tonality" with the gum process. I could xerox all my xeroxes
> for you all to show the huge brouhaha that went on at that time about
> this very issue--can gum, in fact, give the same tonality and dmax as
> carbon transfer?? It seemed back then the proof was in the pudding but
> people continued to say it wasn't. Either that is because it, in
> fact, WASN'T, or they were too proud to back down.
>
> So I have to wonder that there is something we are all missing in our
> modern technique.
>
> This interests me greatly.
>
> Can I suggest a test, not being a carbon printer? For instance,
> Sandy, you "wrote the book" on carbon. Would you be willing to send a
> carbon print you have made, and a digital file of the negative to me
> and/or whomever (digital file uncurved), and with Mark Nelson's
> Precision Digital Negative system I could devise a curve that would
> compress the tonal range of your image into the tonal range of gum and
> print a gum print and see if it rivals the carbon? That would seem to
> be as close to comparing apples to apples as we can get.
>
> I have no clue as to the outcome of this experiment. Carbon perhaps
> may rule. I have no agenda in proving this one way or another. I do
> not do single coat gums. The only real experience I have had with
> carbon is seeing a few at APIS and then your lecture/demo, Sandy, down
> at Clemson. And then seeing that tricolor carbon print at A Gallery
> of Fine Photography that blew my sox off and would've made me give up
> gum if I wouldn't have to spend years slugging through yet another
> technical process to refine to perfection.
>
> I do know, historically, that carbon supplanted the poor little lowly
> gum process, so there has to be benefits of the carbon process that
> gum or their gum technique at the time did not provide.
>
> I WANT to believe that with technology today, the ability to produce
> perfect digital negatives for any process will allow us to come the
> closest to closing that gap between carbon and gum if, in fact, there
> is a superiority to the process of carbon and it is not a glitch in
> gum technique.
> My $5.
> Chris
>
>
>
Received on Sat Apr 15 20:09:45 2006