dimanche 10 octobre 2004

French Toast Why not make extra pieces... A thought occurred to me whilst making the above image "French Toast" for today's blog page... the subject of which, incidentally, was part of our Sunday breakfast this morning. I was in no hurry in the darkroom so used the rather nice, but now discontinued, Kentmere Art Classic rather than any of the usual resin-coated materials which can be washed and dried in a couple of minutes before scanning if in a hurry to get a photograph into print, or on the screen. There is a very similar product to Art Classic in the form of Foma 542 Chamois available from Silverprint in London and B&H in New York, amongst others. Using traditional materials is usually a slow process... I enjoy all the relationships from loading the film spiral in the dark to carefully agitating the film tank every minute or whatever regimen I follow to produce the best results. I get to sense how the sensitised paper materials will react with the chemistry... various developers produce neutral, warmer or cooler tones which, when combined with neutral, warm or cool-tone papers, give the printer a varied palette to work with. But, as I was saying, my thought was to make two images. Because all the choices of materials and darkroom techniques have already been worked out and applied when I decide that the print in my hands is the finished work... it would make sense to produce a second print there and then. So this is the plan... I make two prints of every monochrome image that is seen on my daily webblog... one is a reference print for my files (hey, or my wall!)... the other is up for grabs to someone out there. I prefer black-and-white interpretation to colour reality so the majority of images will inevitably be monochrome... unless I go digital before the year is out. People said it was never going to happen... but it took two! Bloggers, readers and lurkers can register three votes for their favourite and two runner-up images by sending an e-mail (that's the easy part - you hit the envelope symbol on this page and tell me which print, or maximum of three prints, you would choose to have on your wall). The images accumulate 3, 2 and 1 points in order of merit and at the end of the month the image with most points auto-selects the duplicate print I made to be given to the person who predicted the best three images in order of final merit as decided by the accumulation of points from everybody throughout the month. If there's a tie I'll probably have to make another dupe! I think the take-up on this offer will be slow for a month or two as I start from scratch to built traffic... but that's no deterrent to you because those who are reading my scribblings at this early stage have the better short-odds of winning an original signed print. All you have to do is quickly look at them all, make an equally quick choice and click through to me! Don't query print quality from the screen shot... or ponder on sharpness and focus... you'll get an archival print, of your own choice, for your wall, for FREE. Of course there's the possibility that some of you may want a print whether or not it's judged an overall winner and whether or not you entered the contest. You may just want such-and-such an image now rather than waiting until the end of the month plus the added postal time hassles. If so, contact me and I will make one for you... printing was a big part what I did for a living for nearly 40 years and I enjoy the buzz of seeing an image emerge from the developer in my darkroom. Naturally there's a charge for this... but whereas in the past I've been rather precious about "limited editions" of prints (into that read, "No real success with galleries!") I did, in the 1970s, see two originals sold at Christie's South Kensington, London... so I have a bit of form to drop into polite conversation. I'd rather make these deals sweet and simple... sweet as in $50 per signed, toned, archival image on 12 x 9.5 inch fibre paper (not matted but protected by card sheets) plus postage... and simple as in clicking a PayPal button which over 50 million have signed up to including yourself perhaps. By using PayPal I receive an instant payment and you get a print into the mail probably the next day... and PayPal back-up services protect you. This is a bargain deal for Salon.com users. If you want to invest in a larger image or images send me an e-mail and we can talk specifications, numbers and price. 9:43:17 PM    comment []