Re: tonal inversion and pigment loads

Sorry, Katharine, I have posted this image some weeks before with a
clearer explanation of what it did mean. But taken out of
context it is perhaps not very illustrative. Never mind, I'll try to
organize this material better so it's easier to follow and understand.

Yes, living next door would be easier since surely we are looking at the
same things and calling them different names. On the other
hand, since you seem to be a woman of strong convictions, perhaps living
in Madrid is safer for me :-)

You know, I have been thinking about the fact that you have seldom found
inversion in your previous work. Even these days
in your tests, as far as I see, you seem to get easily pigment stain
but not inversion.

In my case it is very different. I get inversion when I want it, with
different papers and pigments. With normal negatives and
subexposition, or with Stouffer tablets, as you have seen.

In a nutshell, I wonder if the very different conditions of relative
humidity and temperature could make a difference. I gather that
you live somewhere on the West Coast up north, not sure if in the U.S.
or Canada, but certainly very humid. I live in a very
dry country. Gum is sensible to humidity, as Kosar dixit. It is a wild
guess, but I wonder ...

Tom Sobota
Madrid, Spain

Katharine Thayer wrote:
>
> On Jan 27, 2006, at 2:29 PM, Tom Sobota wrote:
>>
>>
>> But on the other hand, the images I have shown of my tests of gum on
>> glass show very clearly the presence of gum. The silvery sheen of gum
>> is clearly visible here
>> http://usuarios.arsystel.com/tksobota/Gum_on_glass_12.jpg for
>> example. Could you say that this is the color of plain lamp black on
>> a black glass? I don't think so.
>
>
> Sorry, Tom, I can't even tell what I'm looking at here. What is it
> that you want me to see as an inversion that has gum in it? I see gum
> in the numbers, but the numbers *should* be made of gum. Then I see
> what looks like hardened gum pleating itself up into itself to float
> off the non-number areas of both prints, and underneath that, I see
> pigment stain, a general coat of it on the left strip and a general
> coat with a darker swath on the right tablet. But I don't see any
> inversion behaving like gum, and I see no silvery sheen, I see only
> stain acting like stain. I wish you lived next door so we could run
> back and forth and show each other the actual thing. If you'd direct
> me to the part you want me to notice, maybe I could be a better
> witness of what you're seeing.
> Katharine
>
>
Received on Sat Jan 28 11:25:35 2006