Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Intaglio photography book (photogravure with KM73 plates)


as I mentioned here, I'm writing a book about the intaglio/photographic process that I've been using for the past couple of years.  The digital image documentation for the first workflow is finished.  My goal was to make it comprehensive enough to be useful without overkill.  I think that the best way to achieve this will be to make the two version of the instruction book more different than just color or black & white (as I originally planned).

Here is the new idea:

The first edition will be all black & white printing that will demonstrate the workflow I use for most of my own art.  It will show how the above image was made, with the preliminary steps needed to set up the studio.  I hope to keep this edition under 120 pages.  It should be affordable for most people, and will hopefully inspire them to explore this process.

The next edition will be Full Color with expanded workflows, using a variety of exposure units and printing techniques.  There are some secrets that are not often discussed who's time has come to be revealed.  This edition will be much larger than the black & white edition, and is aimed at those who need a text book for the process, or who just like to know as much as they can about a process.

I think this new plan will change the publishing timetable I mentioned before.  I suspect that the black & white version will be finished in time for publishing in early August.  The Full Color edition will take until the middle of this Fall or early Winter (I want to get it right, and not rush to publish).
-----------------------------------------
***update***
Finished the Black and White version of the book.
Here is a link to the Amazon page.

and, since videos help, here is a link to a video showing the printing process in real time...
http://youtu.be/0HkvxnO22s4


Wednesday, June 19, 2013

"Honorable Mention" by Fotographic Initiatives in Education and Research (FIER)

My photogravure, titled "Campsite Quanta" has received an honorable mention, is currently displayed in the online gallery, and will be included in the book from The World Landscape by FIER.

It was part of a competition called "The Romantic Landscape".  I believe that they are doing a second edition of the competition, and will publish the winners of both in a book some time this winter (2013/2014). 

(update Nov. 26, 2013):  use promo code DOUBLEPLAY to get a discount on the book




Monday, June 03, 2013

the excitement, frustration, and hard work of AltProcess is making me write a book


(polymer) Photogravure Book

The Internet is full of wonderful ideas, accurate descriptions, and helpful advice.  It is also full of repeated inaccuracies, incomplete descriptions, and answers that don’t address the question asked.  Searching through all of the information, to determine which is useful and which is not, can be a lengthy and frustrating process.  I have been through the process for the past three years while becoming increasingly proficient at making photogravures with KM73 polymer plates.  I have been asked about my workflow enough that I have finally decided to write a book about it.

I have seven goals with this instruction book:


1. Assemble information that is more comprehensive than anything I have yet to discover in my years of research into this process.

2. Reveal my entire refined workflow, sharing all tricks that I have learned, adding comments on some (good) techniques that I do not use.  I acknowledge that each artist’s workflow is unique, and that approaches other than my own can achieve similarly excellent results.

3. Photograph as many steps as possible.  My intent will be to have the photography be so comprehensive that some people may not need to read the text of the book.  As a teacher, I want to engage more than one learning style.  My aim is to make the photography as comprehensive as the text.

4. The first page of each chapter will act as a workflow summary that is both a good introduction to that stage of the workflow as well as a quick reference for artists after they have read the book.

5. I hope this book will inspire more artists to share their unique workflows with more detail.  Some good information exists on the Internet, but from far too few people.  My goal is to expand knowledge sharing within the artistic community and encourage other artist to either write their own book or be involved with an expanded second edition of this book.

6. Keep the purchase price of the book reasonable.  I believe this can be done by publishing 2 editions: one black & white and one in full color.

7. As a way to encourage more colleges and universities to experiment with this medium, this book will contain an example syllabus based on a 15-week semester.  It will also have an outline for two-day weekend workshops.

Schedule:

May – Outline for book
June – Principle photography while I create new gravures for the book
July – writing, re-writing, peer review and feedback, more re-writing
August – final editing
September - publishing