We've talked about "photographic seeing" in some of our past newsletters. It seems that any conclusion we may draw regarding this process immediately brings to mind an opposite conclusion with equivalent value. Just as important as selecting specific subjects or isolating details to draw attention to them, it is vital to relax one's conscious effort and to accept accidents and experiences that were neither expected nor sought. This unconscious and unintentional "seeing" also constitutes much of what we call aesthetic vision, just as it is a significant part of everyday visual experience.

As it turns out, this month our newsletter features Guild members who have elected to use what we could label alternative processes, ones that have been chosen for the aesthetic vision they induce. In this month's IN FOCUS, Robert Finley shares his appreciation of the subtle tones he is able to achieve in making his platinum/palladium prints. Ray Bidegain writes about why he settled on this process to express his vision after several years as successful commercial photographer. For Jason Russell, it was the process of making albumen prints that led him to select the large-format camera and contact printing. Finally, we have another "Photographers' Outings" article from active photographer Patrick Kolb who this month brings you some images he made from a recent trip to Central Oregon.

Next month the Guild's group show at the Viewpoint Photographic Art Center in Sacramento, California opens, and we would like to invite everyone who can make it to join us at the opening on August 11. Stop by and say hello! Sometimes it feels like we work in a vacuum, and it is always nice to meet people who follow our work. For more details, see the "Members' Shows" section below.

 

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Platinum is "the medium that will best, most innocently and completely, render the negative's subtle tones and gradations." --Frederick Evans, 1910.

Luminous, rich, lavish, sensual, luxurious, enduring, and stunning are a few of the words used to describe the platinum print. Sounds more like a wine enthusiast's description of a bottle of Château Mouton Rothschild. Having been in the wine business during the 70s and 80s, I knew people that seemed to know more about describing a wine then about enjoying it. For me it was less about sniffing the cork and more about drinking it and reaching my own conclusions: Taste and see what is good.

So it is with platinum/palladium prints. Google "platinum print" and you will find a museum, gallery, or photography site with many of the adjectives above. You will have the option of displaying a platinum image on your monitor (click to enlarge). Chain bookstores will have numerous photo magazines, mostly about digital, but you may find an issue of "View Camera," "Black and White" or "In Focus" with reproductions of platinum prints on shiny pages. Unfortunately, we're still just sniffing the cork.

I stumbled into this classic photographic process unintentionally. It was like leaning against an unlatched door and falling in. I had just purchased a 4x5 view camera and a friend suggested I contact print the negatives using the platinum/palladium process. He had given platinum a try at one time and still had some of the necessary chemicals left. I took one of my negatives over and watched him put so many drops of platinum and palladium into a shot glass with so many drops of ferric oxalate. He coated a piece of stationery paper with this mixture and pretty soon we had a muddy little print of a bridge in Memphis, Tennessee. You would not use any wine-snob adjectives to describe it, but in that dim image I saw a process I would come to love. The cork was out of the bottle.

Nine years later, I still get to do what I love and I continue to learn about this mystical process called platinum printing. I meet wonderful people from all over the world that devote themselves to this humbling craft. We pass around our prints with no frames or mats, looking closely, feeling the texture and "tasting" the image. After all, in the final analysis, it is the image and what it communicates that is most important. The process is used to support and enhance that purpose. It can be all too easy to become obsessed with the process and forget the picture.

So, if you're a collector, I recommend you search out platinum prints with images you love and add them to your collection. If you're a photographer, it's not yet too late to give this classic process a try. Taste and see.

Above you see Robert Finley's image entitled "Louvre Reflected," which is available in our Store. To see more of Robert's work, please click here.

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by Jason Miguel Russell

It's tough to say what draws someone to a certain process. Perhaps it's the latest retro-photographic trend; maybe they've heard that a process displays an unparalleled ability to reproduce subtle gradations in tone. For me, however, the idea of printing on egg whites was more than just a novelty. It was a catalyst taking me into the world of large-format photography.

An article on albumen printing, a somewhat flexible and slightly temperamental process, was first published in 1839 by a person known only as H.L. However, the process as we know it today was really developed by Louis Desire Blanquart-Evrard in 1850. Albumen belongs to the POP family of processes and is a close cousin to the salted-paper print. It was found that by using eggwhites as a photographic binder or emulsion, a glossier finish could be achieved on the paper's surface. This allowed for greater detail in the final print and albumen soon became the leading means of producing a photographic positive from a glass-plate negative.

Since it is a true silver-chloride-paper print, an albumen print must be made by contact printing a specially prepared negative under a light source containing a sufficient amount of UV radiation, i.e. close-banked black-light fluorescents, HID lamps, or (my personal favorite) the sun. Contrast can be affected by introducing chromates to either the albumen or the sensitizer, or by choosing to print in direct sun or to have the print face open sky instead. The printed-out image is closely monitored during exposure time to ensure sufficient density has been obtained. Once the print looks a little darker then "just right," it is rinsed and introduced into a toning solution containing gold, platinum or selenium (although the image must be well fixed before toning in selenium). The image is then fixed, cleared and washed. It takes some practice--plus intuition--during the printing and processing stages in order to create a successful print, as the reactions of both the toner and the fixing baths bleach the image slightly. Once the finer points have been worked out, the albumen print can yield a uniquely wonderful image that will last for generations.

Above you see "Aqua Pod," an 8x10 gold-toned albumen print. To see this and Jason's other images available in our Store, please click here.

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by Ray Bidegain

Just as Irving Penn once said, referring to his printmaking, "Over the years I must have spent thousands of hours silently brushing on the liquid coatings, preparing each sheet in anticipation of reaching the perfect print," it is this process that has completed the circle for me.

To me, a fine platinum print and the process of making it feels like pure photography. I began printing my photographs in platinum after many years as a commercial portrait photographer; I was ready for something to bring back the magic that had drawn me to photography in the first place. It is the handmade nature of it, the counting of the drops and the coating of each sheet that means so much to me. Having always printed all of my own commercial black and white work, I was used to the feeling of ownership one gets from making photographs. Platinum printing, with all of its hands-on elements, took this sense of ownership to a new level. Once it is finished, I find the beauty of a platinum print irresistible. I am affected by its luminosity and gentle warmth, the detail even in the deepest shadows, the delicate whites. Those qualities of the platinum image are unique in human experience. Landscapes and still lifes glow as from an inner light. Portraits look back at us, alive. The print can hold my attention and soothe my soul.

Printing my work exclusively in platinum/palladium for the last ten years has brought me a great feeling of peace and accomplishment. It is my obsession.

(Please check our Special Offers section below to see "Scappoose Canal," one of Ray's newest platinum prints, which illustrates this technique's distinctive qualities.)

 

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