Gum Printing & Digital Enhancements - Final Integrated Assignment

In this final assignment I wanted to amalgamate as much of the knowledge gained in the past three years into these final images. I especially wanted to incorporate some of the findings presented in my dissertation. I had written a chapter on the use of digital technology and its association with photographic art. In my mind I was concerned that the ease of digitally technology could it ever be considered and held in the same reverence as more traditional forms of photography. I had come to the conclusion it could when carrying out primary research and asking accomplished digital photographers their thoughts. However, the only way really to fully appreciate this is to try it yourself, combine both digital and analogue processes and see what emerges. In the Professional Studies assignment I had experimented with this in mind. The image below demonstrates the use of such processes:

This image was created by combining Victorian and modern technologies. To create the swirls around the leaf a Petzval lens was used. The film was Adox CMS 100 first produced in the mid 60's, taken on a modern large format camera. The negative was then contact printed using the Salt Process of Fox Talbot. It was then converted to a digital file via the use of a scanner. The salt print file and the original negative file were manipulated in Photoshop to create the image you see above.


Below is the explanation of how I achieved the Gum Bichromate and digital images for my F.I.A

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The three images above have been produced separately in their relevant processes and then converted to a digital file. The first image is a contact print in the gum process that is under exposed to enhance the highlights. The second image is over exposed to enhance the shadow area. The third is the negative to bring detail back into the image. All three have been combined using Photoshop layers and layer masks along with the brush tool. Now it is fair to say this could  all have been done within the gum process. Multi layers can be printed on the water colour paper without it degrading. However, as previously stated this takes time  and experience. What the digital files provides is the flexibility to manipulate files.


Conclusion


 The question I posed at the start of this blog entry was can digital technology be considered with the same reverence  as more traditional methods of photography. The image above is my attempt to justify the use of digital technology, as whether it's deemed art is for others to state. I am still not totally convinced that it's right to mix media in this way. Don't get me wrong, I am thoroughly happy with the images I've created for this assignment. Perhaps I'm being to picky,  as doesn't  modern art thinking regard all representation being interpreted as art?