Albert Watson: Cyclops...platinum?

Albert Watson is one of the greats....but studying the 6"X7" format "Cyclops" (Taschen) and reading that the prints were (mostly?) platinum I'm puzzled. Is Watson a victim of a graphic designers affectation?

Platinum prints can deliver extraordinary highlight details/tones, beyond what we see commonly with silver (tho good digital can come close). But these plates are often heavily black, sometime more than heavily.

Do you have the book? What do you think about the darkness of "Cyclops" ? (refers to Watson's one eye)

I went to the London book launch of the original Cyclops book in 1994 so have a nice big signed copy of the first (pre Taschen) edition. I remember at the time thinking it was the most beautifully produced photo book in terms of printing I had seen. It has a page detailing all the technical stuff regarding scanning, design, and all the reprographic details for the actual printing of the book.

My impression is that the majority of the images are from silver gelatin. There are certainly quite a few platinum (plus palladium?) prints but they are quite recognisable by the brush strokes.

The two images you featured look very different in the original book and pretty sure they are from silver prints. The Keith Richards one is far more tonal and softer and the other one is not so harsh or colourful. If you were interested can take some snaps of the book spreads.

I had a really good chat with Albert at the launch and he talked about his printing methods in the darkroom. He told me that all the portraits with a pure white background had an overlay mask prepared to block out the background when printing so both photographic paper and mask were register punched and held together with a pin bar. At the time I was doing two and three part comps in the darkroom so that was all familiar. Was a while ago, but presume it was done on large format lith or line film. Or possibly cutting out from sheets of rubylith? So he could light the subject as deep and dark as he liked knowing it would be cleaned up when printed in the darkroom.

Really wish I'd taped our conversation. Would have made a great interview. Was surprised how much time he had to chat, but the launch wasn't that busy. And we're both from Edinburgh!

Wow! Thanks for that detailed response. Of course it'd be great if you could post your book spreads/

Do you have an overall take on Watson's work? That'd be tough, considering its breadth and diversity!

Have you seen the little Cyclops? It's hard to appreciate quickly, so I've repeatedly spent blocks of time with it.

jtk said:

Wow! Thanks for that detailed response. Of course it'd be great if you could post your book spreads/

Do you have an overall take on Watson's work? That'd be tough, considering its breadth and diversity!

Have you seen the little Cyclops? It's hard to appreciate quickly, so I've repeatedly spent blocks of time with it.

Click to expand...

Will post some spreads next time I get round to doing some copying. Hopefully soon!

jtk said:

Wow! Thanks for that detailed response. Of course it'd be great if you could post your book spreads/

Do you have an overall take on Watson's work? That'd be tough, considering its breadth and diversity!

Have you seen the little Cyclops? It's hard to appreciate quickly, so I've repeatedly spent blocks of time with it.

Click to expand...

I totally agree, it's such a great book and needs to be looked at over several days.
It was interesting to read about the pure whites being done in post, I always imagined he did it with great distance between the subject and a well lit white wall.
However he does it it's wonderful.