http://dixonphotography.smugmug.com/Italy
These photographs are exhibited at the Edward Jones office at 51 Main St., Brattleboro, Vermont. during the months of October and November. The office is open during regular business hours. Please drop by and have a look "at the originals".
PHOTOGRAVURE WORK
After returning from Tuscany, I enrolled in a 5-day course on the photographic process of photogravure. Jon Goodman from Florence, Massachusetts taught the course ( http://jgoodgravure.com/ ). The photogravure process was introduced in the late 1800's and is still considered one of the most beautiful methods used to convert a real-life scene into a two-dimensional representation.
In general terms ...
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A "flipped" film positive is made from the digital image. Notice that the final print below has the figures on the left side. Without the flipping, the final printed product will be a mirror-image of the original photo. This "flip" is crucial if there is any printing in the photograph.
Light-sensitive paper is put under the film positive and exposed to ultra-violet light for about 8 minutes. We now have "a print". Note that the process reverses the light and dark, so the undeveloped print (if we could see it) looks like this. This undeveloped print is attached to a highly buffed copper plate.
Chemicals are used to etch the image into the copper plate. The darker the area of the print, the less acid is absorbed in the copper and therefore the depth of the etch is less. A black part of the "print" (see the two figures above) will block most of the acid and the copper plate will be smooth in this area. The light part of the print is exposed to more acid and therefore will be etched the deepest on the copper.
Finally printers ink is rubbed into the etched copper plate with the deeply etched areas of the plate absorbing more ink than the smooth parts. Because there is little or no ink in this area the final image will appear quite light.
The inked plate is placed in a printing press, print paper is laid on top of the plate, and plate and paper are rolled through the printing press to create the final print. The etched plate is removed, all ink is cleaned off, the plate is re-inked, and another print is made. Therefore no two prints are exactly the same since the amount of ink on the plate will vary from print one to print two, etc.
This is a second photogravure I completed at Jon's workshop. The photo is of a vacant bakery in Carcassone, France. I felt the subject matter paired well with this nineteenth century printing process. This etched print is up for auction at the October Insight Photography Silent Auction event.
If you wish further information (and a lot more detail), this is an excellent teaching book. There are also many websites on the internet. Jon Goodman usually teaches two workshops on photogravure each summer (see the link to his website).
