JorjDotOrg - picture of the day

2012-05-15 Joe

Continuing in the "Frank's Kitchens" series: 9 layers of gum, featuring Joe hard at work. I think I may print another layer here; I'm not quite satisfied with the color balance at the moment (which is kinda funny, because I'm color blind). Aah, the trouble with gum prints; I never know when I'm done :)

The paper is Stonehenge Warm White.

2012-04-23 John

Gum over cyanotype on a half sheet of Stonehenge Rising warm white paper.

This print is a direct result of a morning of failures last week. My cyan pigment wouldn't stay on the paper - a combination of two different problems related to two variables I changed simultaneously. After three poor prints I decided I would forego the cyan for the morning and use cyanotype for the base layer to get me started.

I miscalculated the amount of cyanotype solution I needed (resulting in the large cyan area around the edges), and an hour of exposure was about a stop shy of what I wanted, but I managed to correct it with a subsequent layer of cyan gum (for which I again changed two variables, but at least it worked).

From memory, I believe this was 5 layers of gum (M/Y/M/Y/C) on top of one layer of cyanotype. I seem to be settling in on 6-7 layers per print on this paper.

2012-04-22 Technical Discourse

I should probably type something here, eh? Blah blah blah digital blah not a print blah blah gum prints are awesome and more later. M'kay?

2012-04-17 Daddy's Little Boy

St. Patty's Day parade in Jim Thorpe. I've got a few more from this series that I'd like to post, while I get my next gum print running; some experimentation with paper negatives (while I waited for another roll of Pictorico transparency to arrive in the mail) were good, but not fantastic (the ink slightly warps the vellum, causing some new registration challenges). Back to the plastic.

2012-04-16 MonkE

This is probably my busiest art-related year ever. A number of things have fallen in to place, all at the same time. I'm a little saddened that it's taken me further away from posting regularly, but on the other hand, it means that I have work like this that I can post when I have the chance.

Meet Monk E. Burnswell, of Frank's Kitchens. I've accidentally found myself working with these great folks, as part of one of my "I want to do this someday" projects - photographing a build for the Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby.

This is both the largest and most successful of my gum prints to date - a 16"x10.5" print, digitally composited from five distinct shots (both film and digital originals). I took many risks on this print, and it paid off.

First: this is printed on a half sheet of Stonehenge Rising White. Until this point, my largest gum print was a quarter sheet.

Second: I usually forego with the sizing, or cheat with acrylic/PVA sizing. Knowing that some day I'd want to "do gum right," I sized a few full sheets of Stonehenge (white and warm white) last summer - multiple hits of gelatin, hardened with gluteraldehyde. And then they sat around for about 10 months, suriving the "great dimroom flood" last year. (Well, all but the one on top.)

Third: I winged it. I almost always studiously measure everything. This time, there was a lot of "yeah, that looks good" that went in to the printing. I changed gum in mid-print (ran out of higher-quality Windsor & Newton gum, had some Photo Formulary lower-grade opaque stuff). I changed pigments mid-print (ran out of Sennelier C/M/Y, switched to Schmincke Horadam).

I took some reasonable precautions, though - I printed two copies simultaneously, this one (which was to be the "beater" test image) and a slightly larger one (the sheets of warm white are a few inches larger). The larger image has problems in the dark gum areas that I don't like as much. Go figure; the test image became the final print.

So, there you go. More in the pipeline. At least these only take weeks and not months like the casein/glass prints.

2012-04-08 Fire

From the 2012 St. Patty's parade in Jim Thorpe.

Taken with a Widelux F5, on Kodak 400GC.

Recommendation: look at this one large. For some reason my image scaling program isn't scaling this one well; it's quite pixelated at its "small" size.

2012-03-21 Sheila and Bob

Hot off the heels of my glass-on-casein in the annual juried Phillips' Mill exhibition, I'm looking at my next set of research: fumed silica.

This piece is a gold-toned kallitype, printed on Herschel (a handmade linen paper) pre-treated with fumed silica. The pretreatment generally deepens the blacks, with some other more subtle differences in contrast and overall response. I've been slowly pulling together a project to more scientifically test different kinds of fumed silica with different Kallitype processes, and I'm almost there. Except the money to fund it. :O

SO... look for a Kickstarter campaign soon! I'm hoping to get enough funding for a couple of weeks of dedicated research. I predict the results will have application across all siderotype printing techniques and I'm really excited to move this along!

2012-02-11 Burlesque Nr. 5

I'm FINALLY returning to the Burlesque shots from Jim Thorpe's burlesque festival last year. Between my last post on this subject and now, I've been more or less focused on casein-on-glass for some shows this spring, and that's mostly out of the way now (just have to deal with some paperwork and delivery, but the prints are done).

This was originally shot on a Canon 5D, ISO 3200, with a 70-200 f/2.8L. I reduced it to B&W and printed this kallitype on Herschel paper (a handmade paper from Ruscombe Mill). It's toned in a gold thiourea toner, and then a weak palladium toner.

My previous experience with gold toners says this should have come out purpleish. Instead, the paper stained somewhat. I'm not entirely sure what happened and I'll be revisiting this combination again; I'm satisfied with teh blacks that came out of this.

2012-01-30 Vague Recollection

From a photo walk through Durham Township a few weeks ago, this shot of the interior of the Durham Mill was taken with a Widelux F-V: a 35mm panoramic camera. Portra 800.

The extreme distortion at the edges is due to my mis-loading the film, an effect that I've since decided I like, and I keep reproducing. I'd really like to print this one on glass... perhaps after I've finished all of my other prints? Hmm.

2012-01-16 Comfortable

Today was the first meeting of the Philly Photobloggers of 2012. A full day of eating, hiking, exploring the old Durham Mill, and finally retiring to Kathleen's gracious hosting of dinner - with a warm fire waiting.

And this is that scene.