Acidification of Fabriano - a question

[Katharine Thayer]

Since I couldn't attach two attachments to the other post, I'm attaching the lesser pigmented print here, the one that printed beautifully on the wire side of FAEW with no line artifacts in the print. This printed with a DMax of .75, as I already said; the most-pigmented mix above printed with a DMax of 1.8, so I'd call that tentatively the approximate range of DMax available from PBk11 in various concentrations. But even this least-pigmented mix has quite a lot of pigment in it... almost half a tube of paint in 15 ml gum.

This is rather off the topic of the present thread, but I can't resist a "teachable moment" to make a point (to the surrounding hills rather than to any particular person here): gum printing, IMO, is all about understanding pigments.
kt

 

[donbga]

Since I couldn't attach two attachments to the other post, I'm attaching the lesser pigmented print here, the one that printed beautifully on the wire side of FAEW with no line artifacts in the print. This printed with a DMax of .75, as I already said; the most-pigmented mix above printed with a DMax of 1.8, so I'd call that tentatively the approximate range of DMax available from PBk11 in various concentrations. But even this least-pigmented mix has quite a lot of pigment in it... almost half a tube of paint in 15 ml gum.

This is rather off the topic of the present thread, but I can't resist a "teachable moment" to make a point (to the surrounding hills rather than to any particular person here): gum printing, IMO, is all about understanding pigments.
kt

Can we assume that this is a self portrait of sorts?

Don

 

[Katharine Thayer]

Can we assume that this is a self portrait of sorts?

Don

No, this is a....I'm not sure what to call it, a prototype, I guess, for an informal portrait series I've been planning for a couple of years, of a group of people who can be found in the winter at a coffeeshop and seafood market owned by two sisters in a fishing village near where I used to live. I really like these people; I admire them and find their grit and equanimity in the face of hardship an inspiration, and hoped to find a way to express their character in portraits.

I meant to do the series using my Mamiya 67, but that turned out to be too intimidating for the folks, so I tried using my silly little digital point and shoot and that seemed less threatening to them, but I've just taken two trial shots so far, and I'm playing around with the first one seeing how it prints in gum. I just happened to grab the negative for those test prints with PBK11, since it was sitting there handy.

I got this camera to take pictures of the gum process for my website; if I'd had any idea I was going to use it for my actual work, I would have spent some more money and got something decent.

This is the owner of the cafe, a remarkable woman, taking a break from cooking crabcakes and fish and chips, with the counter clutter in the background. The scars on her face are from a car accident she had a couple of summers ago; she was very badly hurt but recovered by sheer strength and will power.

That's more than you wanted to know, but a longwinded way of saying no, it's not a self-portrait. Thanks for asking,
Katharine