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Christopher James says:
"With the loss of many traditional contact
negative materials, Pictorico has filled the void allowing alternative
process artists to produce digitally generated negatives for even
the most discerning photographer … a perfect blend of 19th c. romanticism
and 21st c. technologies."
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Christopher James is artist and photographer, whose paintings
and alternative process images have been exhibited in galleries
and museums in this country and abroad. His work has been published
and shown extensively, including shows in The Museum of Modern Art,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The George Eastman House, and the
Philadelphia Museum of Art. His book,The Book of Alternative
Photographic Processeshas received unprecedented critical acclaim, was the winner of The Golden Light
Technical Book of the Year award, and has become the standard reference
text in alternative process image making. The second edition is available in store now.
After 13 years at Harvard University, He is currently
Professor and Chair of Photography at The Art Institute of Boston
at Lesley University.
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The Pictorico OHP Solution:
The New Contact Negative for Alternative Processes
"Let's deal with a little reality … mastery
of traditional film stock is becoming a lost art. There are
fewer types of film to master, fewer places to purchase
it, and fewer vendors who process it than there were just a year ago.
The facts do not support unbridled optimism about the future when
it comes to traditional wet-lab film stock or the beloved, by alternative
process photographers, Polaroid's Type 55 P/N.
That said, digital negatives offer special advantages to the
alternative process artist. Most obvious is the ease and flexibility
of making and altering the negative so it can be optimized for the
particular process you will be doing. This allows for real flexibility.
The ability to output on Pictorico OHP, a large format, high quality,
ceramic-coated, inkjet film, makes the digital negative option
far more efficient than working in a traditional lab. It is faster,
less expensive to archive, more flexible, less precious, and can
be endlessly modified to mold to your intentions and process, i.e.,
with curves unique to a specific technique. Most significant, Pictorico
OHP's new ceramic coating is capable of holding an ink load density
that will allow you to produce alternative process contact negatives
with densities that are necessary for ideal technique and output.
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The ability of the digital negative to customize
densities and curves, to match the peculiarities of the processes
you are printing in is, to put it simply, a terrific improvement
over the wet lab. An example would be the need of a platinum/palladium
negative for a long and gently sloping toe and shoulder curve, for
delicately separated highlight and shadow detail. By digitally creating
a steeper curve, and dictating the D-min (minimum density) and D-max
(maximum density) of the negative, you can provide yourself with
a negative that is far easier to print in an alternative process.
Add to that negative a color layer that mimics the UV screening
pyro tint and you have greatly improved your chances for a good
printing experience. This control well exceeds the speed limits
one can master in a traditional darkroom environment, which remains
dependent on how well everything went during the original shoot.
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In the first edition of my 2001 book,The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes, I went into
a lengthy discussion of what was needed to make a decent digital
negative, what you had to spend to get the right equipment to do
it, and all of the myriad steps you had to take to get from where
you were to where you wanted to go… out in the sun with your new
contact negative to make a new print. In the new, second edition,
my intent was to simplify this process with easy to follow workflows
so that you could achieve success quickly and easily with a minimal
amount of digital expertise.
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Digital contact negatives on Pictorico OHP can be fine-tuned
as a positive, cleaned up with healing brush and cloning tools,
adjusted with levels and curves, and taken to a point where the
image on the screen is exactly the way you want your print to look.
Then you may assign a custom curve profile for the process you are
performing andinvertthe image to get to a negative state.
This inverted negative file can be further enhanced with the addition
of a color layer, printed out on Pictorico OHP film, and within minutes
be successfully employed in any contact print-based alternative
process.
I am seeing a resurgent passion for the alternative process image
and am observing students using their digital imaging skills to
produce powerful visual statements where context, syntax, and content
are in harmony with their handmade print intentions. They are using
its best, and distinctive, qualities to produce negatives and prints
that are as unique as any created in any discipline, and Pictorico
OHP is a product that lives up to their expectations and demands."
Christopher James
www.christopherjames-studio.com
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