Is anyone making orotone prints anymore

Patrick Robert James

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Kate Breakey does some type of process with ink on glass. Obviously the ink part isn't APUGish, but she is the only person doing anything like this that I have seen in a long time. Check out her hand colored bird photographs too. They are rather nice.

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NedL

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Those look really nice... I wish I could see them in person. "Hamilton Pool" and "Beach Willunga" caught my eye... and that "Birds on a Wire" is also nice. "Fish on a Plate" looks amazing. What a great set of work!

Funny you mentioned this... since this thread popped back up again it got me also thinking about whether a pigment print on glass or vellum would work, or maybe even on glassine.... I mean "apug friendly" pigmented gelatin or gum.
 
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Wayne

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That's great stuff, the hand painted ones are brilliant.
 

nmp

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Here is another photographer who does (or did) portraits with glass+gold orotones.


His other pieces that he calls aerotones are also orotones but not sure the materials involved.

http://www.rfoto.com/aerotn.html
 

nmp

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Thanks for sharing the link. Hauntingly beautiful work, APUGish or not!
 
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blindpig

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As I sit here awaiting the delivery of my 8X10 film from Freestyle,it occurs to me that in all my years making a living in photography I'd never made an in-camera paper negative nor used stand development and lastly tried orotone prints. All these things are increditably fun and will put the incoming film to that use.The paper negatives offer a close appearance to Curtis's prints as they are blue sensitive and yield nearly blank sky's which enhance the"look" I think.
Sorry for the ramble,hopefully will be posting pics soon(if the film ever gets here LOL!).
 

NedL

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I sure do agree with you about paper negatives. One of the reasons I like them so much is that they have that turn of the century "atmosphere".

I bought a few 5x7 frames from the dollar store and am using the glass for a few experiments, and the frames themselves as contact printing frames. My first attempts didn't work, but I ran into something unexpected that is very interesting. I won't sidetrack this thread too much with it... I got hardened pva sizing that would not wash off in hot water and had to be scrubbed off, while the unexposed pva washed right off the glass easily in hot water... so... maybe add some pigment and ... ??
 
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blindpig

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Have been trying several techniques for getting the"gold" to look right(to me).Also finding some images look better than others for the orotone effect and learning which densities to shoot for. In my opinion images shot on paper negatives appear most like the Curtis orotone images(probably because of the blue sensitivity,like older glass plates).I stripped the Joshua tree print I put up before and applied my latest "gold" backing,the wife liked it enough to frame it.
I'm having enough trouble with my digital camera that I'm shooting pics to post that think it's headed for the trash bin.one pic is correct the next way off in color and focus appears sharp on one and not on the next exposure of the same picture (nothing moved go figure).I'm going to post my latest anyway so please over look the inconsistencies...







This last one is the worst,bad image and dig camera went south on focus but thought it would illustrate poor image choice.
 

Wayne

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I agree with the wife-the Joshua tree looks great!

I was planning to try orotones projecting onto Liquid Light on glass, but either me or my LL wasn't up to the task and its going to go on hold (with everything else darkroom related) for a couple months.
 

NedL

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Really nice Don!

I like number 3 very much and it reminds me of the "wild horses" monument in the Columbia river basin. Something I like most in a photograph: it makes me wish that I was standing there.

I know what you mean about digital camera photos of prints... it's infuriating trying to get one with correct colors.

My experiments are stalled until I can make a different kind of negative... my process isn't working with paper negatives and needs film or glass to go forward.
 
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rfoto

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I've been making orotones and silvertones For well over a decade. I have a few examples at Etherton gallery in Tucson. Silver gelatin prints on glass backed with gold or silver.

http://www.ethertongallery.com/html/artist_detail.php?recordID=139

FYI, from my research those older orotones did not use real gold. They were made with bronzing powder.
 

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