Ah, relief

Eric,

Marton, in his "Modern Carbon Printing" c. 1905, is quite explicit in
telling how to eliminate relief. It is clear he finds it to be a defect. I
think the dislike for relief was near universal in the classical carbon
period. Double transfer, if I recall, was the main curative for relief.

I've rummaged (an accurate term) through a number of collections in Europe
(where rummaging unfortunately is still allowed, Mr Nze, was with me on one
rummaging episode can attest to this!) and looked at many early carbon
prints. You never see relief in older prints. You see lots of fog and black
specks though! Formulas for making tissue just said add x number of grams of
carmine red or lampblack, the assumption was you just dump it in the gelatin
and stir. Today we used pigment dispersions, or if just using pigment, we
ball mill it in dispersing agents. Fog is hard to determine if it was a
defect or an asset. Printing styles in those days seemed to avoid white
whites and black blacks and focused on the midtones.

I think in today's world of electronic inkjet images, relief is something to
distinguish a carbon print from the run of the mill digital print. Over time
it may be a passing fancy, just like brush marks were in the early days of
platinum printing. There is certain elegance to a carbon print, maybe it's
the black cocktail dress and pearls of the photographic world and doesn't
need a pair of argyle socks to liven it up.

I am interested in making some high relief tissue and playing with relief
and think it may be an interesting asset for some images. I am not sure I
want it as a steady diet. I like Japanese food but not as a steady diet but
there are millions who do! I dunno, for me the jury is still out.

Carbon, in my mind, is perhaps the most extensible of the photographic
processes and is exciting for that reason.

--Dick

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-carbon@spitbite.org [mailto:owner-carbon@spitbite.org] On Behalf
Of Eric Scott
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2006 8:27 PM
To: carbon@spitbite.org
Subject: Re: [carbon] acetone

Dick,

Have you seen any older carbons, say 1800's , that had significant
relief? I viewed quite a few naked carbons from the 1800's at the
SFMOMA. I held them in my hands and inspected them closely. No
relief. The book "Keepers of the Light" talks about how to identify
older carbons. No talk of relief. Apparently Crawford hasn't seen
any either. I'm wondering if making carbons with significant relief
is a recent phenomenon. To me, if transferring to FOP, relief almost
becomes a necessity. Otherwise you've got a print that's virtually
indistinguishable from a silver print. At that point one might
ask: "What's the point?". From what I understand, carbon came
about as a result of silver prints fading noticeably in high
pollution areas, not because folks were looking for something that
was aesthetically more pleasing than a silver print. Of course what
I say does not apply when transferring to watercolor paper. Even
though such prints resemble platinum/palladium prints, looking at
them fairly closely reveals quite clearly that they're something
different.

Eric.

On Dec 22, 2006, at 10:52 AM, Richard Sullivan wrote:

>
> High relief is an issue of personal taste. I think it is somewhat
> like
> brush marks on a pt print. I think it is an interesting and novel
> idea for
> portfolio prints, but once under glass in a frame, it is not that
> visible. I
> am sort of neutral on the subject. I think it would be nice for
> some prints
> and immaterial for others.
>
> --Dick
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Received on Fri Dec 22 20:07:00 2006