Tools & Printmaking

Too much can be written and discussed about cameras and hardware. Suffice it to say that all my photographs are made on film, and always have been. I use primarily large format cameras (Linhof and Wista, 5x4 and 7x5 inches), but also medium format (Hasselblad) and occasionally 35 mm Leica M cameras. Film is Ilford FP4 Plus, HP5 Plus or, for colour, Fuji Velvia or Provia.

Printing warrants more explanation. My silver-gelatin prints are all made in the darkroom using a De Vere/Condit 504 enlarger on Ilford papers. They are then selenium-toned, extensively washed, flattened and finally despotted using matching dyes.

In addition to silver-gelatin prints, I make prints in other precious metals (platinum, palladium and gold) by hand-coating fine art papers, selected for their sympathy with the subject. These ‘alternative’ prints are contact prints made from large-format negatives; exposure uses a UV transilluminator emitting 365 nm light.

I am indebted to fellow academic Dr Mike Ware for teaching me the rudiments of platinum and palladium printing long, long before I began to implement them. Subsequently, he has been a fountain of advice and instruction. Printing in platinum and palladium is perhaps the summit of ‘alternative processes’ – the images are formed in noble metal nanoparticles, embedded in the fabric of the paper. The Ware-Malde versions of these processes provides a ‘print-out’ image, having advantages in economy, accessible chemistry, and control through the ability to observe directly the emerging image. Platinum and palladium may be used individually, or mixed in any proportion, allowing control of image hue and contrast.

The gold process was long discounted as a viable printing method and forgotten for eighty years until Mike Ware, armed with his professional background in chemistry, revisited the process and introduced a wonderful printing-out process in pure gold. He named it the ‘new chrysotype’ in honour of Herschel’s invention of 1842.

Please be aware that prints made in platinum, palladium and gold exhibit marked colour differences. They are monochrome perhaps, but definitely not black and white. Print colour is dictated by the chemicals used to coat the paper, the nature of the paper and the printing protocol, particularly the humidity of the paper at the point of exposure.

Colour prints are now made on Fujiflex media, necessitated by the demise of Ilfochrome (Cibachrome) many years ago. Large-format transparencies are scanned at high resolution, and the resulting scans used to make beautiful prints by Peak Imaging in Sheffield. Fujiflex (similar in look and feel to Cibachrome prints) is Fujifilm’s premier photographic printing material. Only cropping is done, if essential, in Photoshop; no other digital manipulation is done.

Dates for individual images in my Portfolio are those of the original negative or transparency, not the date of any internegative or print. Also given are print media and reference numbers.

Mike Ware has been exceptionally generous in describing the ‘alternative’ processes fully, clearly and freely in these links and elsewhere:

The Platino-Palladiotype Process

The Eighth Metal: the Rise of the Platinotype Process

The New Chrysotype Process