I came across this interview via We Can’t Paint and thought I’d pass it along.
More information about Eggleston’s exhibition at the Whitney can be found on their website.
Thanks to a little nudge from Jeremy Moore, I’ve started gum printing again. Getting this print was a frustrating yet educational experience. It took me a while to realize that I was over-exposing my cyanotype layer, but once I figured that out it all went fairly smoothly.
I’ll be putting a few gum prints of this image up for sale through my blog over the next week or so. Stay tuned.
Update 5/20: My second attempt proved to be much more successful.
Or, click here to download the 4″x5″ @ 300 dpi TIFF.
N 45.68886, W 111.07502. March 20, 2009 by Camden Hardy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fully decked out with gloves, respirator, and apron, I spent my Saturday morning playing with the mordancage process. While I had subjected many a print to the toxic and unpredictable bleach/etch process, I had never done it to a negative before. Needless to say, this was a learning experience for me.
I learned that the etch process happens very quickly with film. I learned that if the veiling happens while still in the mordancage solution, it’s been in there too long; say goodbye to the emulsion. I learned not to lay the negatives out on newspaper to dry, and to keep them the hell away from an open window on a windy day. I also learned that I should probably wear safety glasses next time.
Despite the unexpected challenges, I did manage to come up with some decent results. I was surprised at how the images looked in positive form: the images that looked good on the negative looked terrible as a positive and vice versa. Here are scans of all of the negatives after the mordancage. Some are more successful than others.
