Refelections are so fascinating to contemplate aren’t they?
Are they ones other self. Are they what others see? Are they our hidden self?
How do we look at them when we always view the world with our rose coloured glasses? What do we see?
I took this photograph of Kiera Grant in November 1994. It was part of a shoot with a couple of students in Glenbrook Gorge. We wander the bush and stop at various interesting locations to photograph her. Kiera is a professional nude fine art model, from the USA, she turns up in Australia every few years and we organise to work together.
I really enjoy working with Kiera and over the years the shoots have always made the next one easier. Personally, I think that shows in this photograph. I talk endlessly about our connections with Mother Nature, trees and my Flesh and Stone Series. Looking at this work now I realise it’s part of a series about refelections and our inner and outer selves.
I turned the photograph into a polymer photogravure in May 2015 at the Warringah Printmakers Studio with Silvi Glattauer whilst learning her direct to plate technique.
Photogravure is reverend in photography collections as the most outstanding and subtle method of creating photographs. It is how we used to print many fine photography books and magazines. Camera Work published by Stieglitz is one such example. He was known to send the whole issue back if the plates weren’t to his standards.
Photogravure is an intaglio printing process. I first studied etching at Art School in Paddington in 1985/6. Etching involves taking a zinc plate, covering it with a thin tar ground and scratching through it with a needle. You then place the plate in acid and a grove grows as the acid bites into the plate. To print an etching, you fill these groves with ink, and wipe the plate clean. Traditionally you finish the wiping with your palm. Yes, printmaking is a very inky business and it always involved me covering myself, inadvertently, with ink.
The plate is put on the bed of an etching press, covered with a damp paper and felts, then run through the press with lots of pressure and as smoothly as possible.
A finished print emerges on the other side. Lifting it up off the plate is one of those moments of omg… either, stunning or opps, better start again… The process is repeated for each print. Going right back to adding more ink.
Traditional Photogravure is done on copper plates with light sensitive gum. A rosin is delicately scattered on the plate randomly, and melted over a metho burner to set it. This gives a texture that will eventually hold the blacks. Then the light sensitive gum is applied. We then contact print from a film positive through and the gum hardens where it gets Uv light. It is placed in various strengths of acid and feathered with a feather so the acid eats into the plate at just the right amount.
Not a very healthy printmaking process, but no where near as dangerous as lithography which was my minor at art school. I lost my teacher mid term to cancer that she had probably picked up after a lifetime of lithography.
Modern polymer photogravure is much safer and an easier process to master. We use plates from the printing industry. They dissolve in water and one day I will be able to print them in my own studio. I just need a new printer and an etching press to start.
The photograph that leads this post is now a photogravure print. There are nine prints and a couple of artists proofs. Each of the nine are collector’s items and will never be printed again. You will see them reproduced in books, on the web, and in magazines, but that is all. It is printed on cotton rag paper that has a slight yellowishness to it. Museum archival quality. Printed with pure Carbon Ink. These will last many lifetimes, centuries, like the ones we still see that Rembrandt created as etchings.
Despite the differences in the way the plates are made, and the different names, the actual prints are still just pure carbon ink printed on cotton rag paper. Unfortunately I have been in a few arguments about the naming conventions, some tell me that I can’t use the word Photogravure because I don’t use a copper plate. People are funny. I personally think saying they polymer photogravures covers me. The actual printing process and final prints are identical. Intaglio Prints!
The other self, Kiera Grant, Intaglio Print, Polymer Photogravure, photography and text copyright © Len Metcalf 2019