The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám

I looked in vain for a copy of Edward FitzGerald's translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Kháyyám (Persian: رباعیات عمر خیام) from Dodge Publishing in 1905 with photogravure illustrations by Adelaide Hanscom. Biblio.com, my great source for used books, showed only the later copies with colored (halftone?) illustrations.

On the off chance they were misunderstood by the sellers, I ordered two copies dated 1905 described as having black and white illustrations from Amazon. The first arrived, I glanced at it briefly - it was the later 1908 version with weak halftone reproductions. In the meantime I managed to buy many of the tissue photogravures that were separated from the book off a kindly seller on Ebay. 

Another week went by and the second copy from an Amazon seller arrived. I ripped open the package to find the book as described - spine detached, book split in half, pages loose, less than fair condition. 

With the tissue photogravures undamaged and intact. 

As I showed my wife the difference between the exquisite original photogravures that are the basis for Adelaide Hanscom's reputation and the later weak halftone reproductions of the (very slightly larger) other copy, I turned a page and surprisingly found one tissue photogravure (shown above) stuck in its proper place next to its corresponding halftone. Sublimely beautiful in contrast to the ordinary illustrations it accompanied. It had a price of $3.00 marked in pencil in the upper right corner.

I've read that FitzGerald's translation may have been a bit more creative than simply converting Persian to English. That said, some of his translation remains known today and is quoted still:

The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

Hanscom used her San Francisco Bay Area friends, including the poets George Sterling and Joaquin Miller, as actors in her constructed scenes. After taking the photograph, Hanscom would rework the glass negative painting in details, backdrops, effects. She had a strong singular vision of pictorial photography heavily influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement.

I find the images quietly exciting. Fresh. I was filled with delight on turning the pages more than one hundred years after they were printed, marveling at the delicacy and sensuality of her photographs and treatments.

The first of several tragedies struck Hanscom when the negatives used for the groundbreaking illustrations in this book were destroyed along with her studio in the fires following the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. 

I am sitting here in Jamaica writing this. Relaxing. Musing on the turns of life and the beauty to be found. Red Stripe beer at ready, Clive is setting up for the Rum Punch Party to be enjoyed shortly. Hummingbirds have gotten used to me sitting here writing. Taking a break before the new child arrives in July. My wife must be here somewhere. Enjoying the pool, the broken sunlight.

I first found the reference to Adelaide Hanscom, her work, and this book on the most excellent site Photogravure.com. Seeing the images online is a pale experience to seeing the delicate tissue gravures in person.  That said, I attach more of Hanscom's illustrations at the bottom of this note. Additional images can be found on Photogravure.com. Read the text while viewing the images.

I hope you get the chance to see some of these original photogravures someday. So much is lost. So much remains to be created.

Sonnets from the Portuguese

I went up to the Antiquarian Book Fair in San Francisco this past weekend. There were many bookstores selling their wares ranging from illuminated manuscripts to 8" x 10" glossies of Bettie Page ($500, signed - thanks, I already have one). I was looking for examples of photogravures in books. I stopped at several booths, and spent about three hours walking around. Pretty much for nought. Too many books to open, too many booths, too little time.

On returning home, I went to my faithful resource Biblio.com and tracked down a copy of Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, with 20 tipped in photogravures by the pictorialist Adelaide Hanscom (Leeson). The sonnets were written immediately prior to her marriage to Browning, the most famous being Sonnet 43.

I have been tracking down and acquiring original vintage examples of dust grain photogravures being guided primarily by a list to be found at the truly wonderful site The Art of the Photogravure. They have good reproductions of significant photogravures from the early 1900's, but the images on the web pale in comparison to the originals.

Adelaide Hanscom began significant contributions to pictorial photography with the illustrations she produced for The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Her images are heavily manipulated (starting with glass plate negatives) to achieve a painterly style - this same approach was used for the Sonnets from the Portuguese. Many of the images do not look photographic. The Rubaiyat is perhaps the first book to show a photograph of the male nude. One of several tragedies in her life struck in 1906 when the San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fires destroyed her studio and all the negatives for the Rubaiyat.

Hanscom combined multiple negatives and drew in backgrounds and borders to achieve her artistic effects. The border designs reflect the aesthetics of the Arts and Crafts Movement at that time. The images for the sonnets were taken over the years from 1903 to 1915. Several of the images were made in Danville, California where she taught drawing in the high school. The house she lived in while there still stood as of 2003.

Tragedy began stalking her at a quicker pace. Her husband was killed at Verdun in 1916. Her father Meldon died after a brief illness in 1919.

In 1921, she spent all year in the Agnews State Mental Hospital in San Jose, California.

In the morning after my order for the sonnets, I got an e-mail from Ian Kahn, owner of Lux Mentis book store saying he was at the fair in San Francisco and I could pick up the book that day if I liked. I liked, and drove up 101 to San Francisco for a second time in as many days. A surprise at leaving, I spied a single volume of Curtis's epic work The North American Indian at the booth across from Lux Mentis. At $30,000 I very carefully, simply and only viewed the exquisite photogravures.

The pages of the Sonnets from the Portuguese are heavy and rough edged requiring turning each one by one, the tipped in gravures are sumptuous. The printing is sensual matching the sonnets. I spent a rainy day reading the book and viewing the images.

Adelaide Hanscom died in 1931, struck by a car as she stepped off a trolley in Pasadena, California and was all but forgotten.

"Well played!" whispered Monica.

I have been acquisitive of books on photography from the late 1800's and early 1900's for a few reasons. First and foremost is to get original source material on photographic printing processes that were not yet considered historical at the time. Second, I've been looking for images of vintage equipment and advertisements for use in this blog. Third, I've been looking for fine examples of photogravures and some books from this period have exquisite examples. 

One such find was The Artistic Side of Photography: In Theory and Practice by A. J. Anderson, a fundamental statement on pictorial photography published in 1910 with hand pulled gravures whose production was overseen by Alvin Langdon Coburn.

I curled up the other night reading it and relishing the gravures. The book's curious structure is one of presenting the material on pictorial photography then recapping the points in analogy with a third person (besides the reader and the author) named Monica. I wanted to share one brief dialogue (with two gravures from the book), which as I read the passage was left wondering if photography was a metaphor for something else.

LEAF FROM MY NOTE-BOOK

The Pianola versus Billiards

"They say," said Monica sadly, "that artistic photography is like playing the pianola; and I don't like the pianola, Mr. Anderson."

"They do say it. I have heard even Evans say it; but it isn't true." The girl's face brightened.

"If I had to make a print from a negative taken by someone else, and my work consisted only in softening some parts and emphasizing others, then I should be like a pianola player. Pictorial photography is like billiards."

"Go on! Please go on!" urged Monica.

"One has to calculate the angles at which the light rebounds from an object, just as one has to calculate the angles at billiards; one has to calculate the rebound from soft and coloured objects, just as one has to calculate the absorption of energy and alteration of angle in the rebound from a soft cushion; one has to get the exact strength in both exposure and development, just as one has to get the exact strength in a billiard stroke; and one has to play for the break. A break commencing with exposure and ending with a perfect print from an enlarged negative is no small break, and each step must lead up to the next."

"Well played!" whispered Monica.

"All this time the hand is governed by the eye and brain, just as in billiards; but herein lies the difference: in making a billiard break, two players aim at exactly the same result - an addition to the score; whilst in photography each artist aims at something entirely original. Good average pictorial photographers are about as common as good average billiard players; but taking everything into consideration, is it strange that absolutely first-class men are rare?"

"No, indeed." said Monica.

"As rare as a Roberts or a Stevenson?"

A Treatise on Photogravure

The Internet is a wonderful place. Really.

I am carrying around on my vacation a 1974 reprint by the Visual Studies Workshop of Herbert Denison's A Treatise on Photogravure (in Intaglio by the Talbot-Klič Process). It is available used at a price of $275 (for the reprint) at Amazon.com today, which may put it out of many people's reach.

For whatever reason, this book is one of many scanned by Microsoft as part of an effort to put out-of-copyright works on the web for wider access. A full color PDF version of this black and white treatise is available, and other formats are available also, in a scan from the University of Toronto. It was the 32nd hit on Google.com that yielded a launch page on Archive.org to find a scanned version of the text. I keep forgetting to search there first - they have several other early texts on photography.

A brief biography of Jon Goodman mentions that he carried this slender 140 page reprint around with him during his early studies of photogravure in Europe (though it incorrectly lists the first publication date as 1865 - some thirteen years before Klič perfected the method). 

The book presents a complete description of the steps of process in the table of contents:

1. Introductory
2. The Negative
3. The Transparency
4. The Gelatine Resist
5. The Copper Plate
6. The Ground
7. Mounting and Developing the Resist
8. The Mordant
9. Etching the Image
10. Photogravure in Line
11. Printing from the Plate
12. Afterwork on the Plate
13. Steel-facing the Plate
14. Historical Notes

The text assumes hands on knowledge of traditional silver photography and darkroom work, and perhaps a working knowledge of carbon printing methods. I do find it amusing that these older texts have sections titled Historical Notes. The facsimile edition reprints the 1895 version - some 55 years after the invention of photography. Also, as others have noted, steel-facing is a misnomer, the copper plates once etched are iron-coated electrolytically. There are some modern references I'll dig up to non-toxic (less toxic) approaches to copper plate photogravure - do poke around a bit to find those.

So if you were looking for something to read as you entered the New Year, this is my recommendation.

Wash out

Let's talk about washing out the Toyobo KM73 photopolymer plate.

On Jon Lybrook's recommendation I eventually purchased the Boxcar Press brush. Dianne Longley talks about any flat soft bristle brush being usable for washout. After constructing my own using taped together bristle paint brushes from Home Depot, I decided to buy the Boxcar brush. At 4" x 8", it fits neatly in the palm of my hand. The soft bristles present a flat broad washout surface to the plate. A plate washer I saw at Kala Institute during a workshop had a large flat brush with bristles about 1" long if I recall correctly.

As Jon and others have suggested, I line the bottom of a plastic tray with a 60 mil magnetic sheet to hold the steel-backed KM73 plate still during washout. I fill the tray with tap water to just near the top of the Boxcar brush as it rests against the bottom. The water is about 70 deg. F. I do not at this time worry about the temperature of the water greatly. I keep my darkroom at about 70 deg. F also.

After first exposing the plate to the positive, and then to the aquatint screen (talcing and brushing the plate before each exposure), I place the plate into the water and allow it to settle centered on the magnetic sheet.

I fire off a two minute timer - my washout for a plate about 8" x 10" is two minutes. Following Longley's suggested wash out procedure in her book Printmaking with Photopolymer Plates, I brush the plate in a circular motion, moving from one side of the plate to the other. I think I am making 3" to 4" elliptical motions with my hand during washout. I make sure to extend the brushing about two inches beyond the plate edge when starting to ensure I wash the entire plate.

I do not put much pressure on the brush. I start by letting the weight of the brush apply the pressure, and add a bit more with my hand. The brush moves across the plate easily - though you will quickly feel friction from the "etched" areas of the plate and the bristles find a hold in the depressions that will later hold the ink. After doing this several times I think that fine bristles are probably important for washing out plates made with a fine aquatint screen.

When I reach the other edge, again ensuring I brush two inches past the plate edge, if necessary I shift the brush down, and continue brushing with a circular motion, overlapping the strokes to the other end of the plate. 

If the plate is long you may repeat this motion, reversing at the edge of the plate one more time.

Jon's site mentioned keeping a stroke count to ensure a uniform wash out. In trading e-mails with him he mentioned he is a bit more relaxed about the stroke count. That said, here is a conundrum. You really want to uniformly process the plates each and every time to get consistent results. If you use different size plates (for different size prints) this becomes interesting. I have been using 8.5" x 10" plates (cut down from larger originals) during my calibration and testing. I'm not sure what I will do when I tackle larger plates. This might be the basis for the warning on the Boxcar site to only use the brush for plates up to 9" x 12".

When I reach the end of the plate I rotate the brush 90 degrees and begin brushing along the other axis of the plate. I vary the orientation of the brush to ensure lightly scrubbing the plate in a fairly random variation. Truth be told, I then rotate the brush 45 degrees and attack the plate (gently) on a diagonal axis.

And then I repeat until the two minutes are up. Note I have read many recommendations for time to wash out. The time recommended is less for relief printing, more for fine halftone work. I do not pre-soak. And I use a soft brush with gentle pressure.

I lift the plate out of the water and, using a garden hose sprayer head set to a broad spray pattern (not a jet) on the end of a hose, I wash the plate down with a fair bit of water pressure. I make several passes over the plate with the sprayer.

I let the plate drip dry for a few seconds before laying it down on a sheet of blue shop paper towel for drying.

The polymer plate is delicate at this stage. The polymer is only partially hardened. I take care to not touch the surface of the plate with my bare hands, nor scratch it with fingernails, the hard handle of the brush, or knock it into anything as I move it around. There's no repairing it once scratched.

Paul Strand

I just finished watching the documentary Strand: Under the Dark Cloth. The commentary went "[Late in life] Paul Strand went to Ghana... where he used a handheld camera for the first time." Yeah, what looks to be Graflex RB single lens reflex. 

Cataracts waylaid him briefly in his old age but still he printed - trying to direct his wife Hazel in the darkroom (operations restored his vision and he never drove again, but immediately returned to the darkroom).

Paul Strand was a much younger contemporary of Alfred Stieglitz, and the young Strand at first emulated the pictorialists he saw at the 291 gallery. He later moved to formal abstractions in his images and helped define early American modernism in photography. There is an interesting write-up on the Metropolitan Museum site.

Strand looms large in the world of photogravure. Stieglitz's seminal magazine Camera Work reproduced several of Strand's images in photogravure, the final issue being devoted almost entirely to Strand's work. The quality of the photogravures in Camera Work is said to be outstanding.

In 1940, Paul Strand issued a portfolio of twenty photogravures entitled Photographs of Mexico in an edition of 250. In 1967, Strand reissued the work from the original steel faced copper plates as The Mexican Portfolio in an edition of 1,000. Published by Da Capo Press, with the photogravures printed by the Andersen Lamb Company, of Brooklyn, on Rives BFK paper. Beth Moon observed when we sat down to view them with Mark Nelson and his friend Richard that the photogravures seemed to be varnished. Mark later found a reference to a letter by Strand confirming this. The above note indicates the varnish used in the 1940 edition has in many cases since darkened. The varnish in the 1967 portfolio in my possession seems quite clear. Aperture has available six of the images in an edition of 350 printed by Jon Goodman, from the original plates.

I picked up the 1967 portfolio (said by Strand in the preface to exceed the quality of the 1940 edition - but perhaps that is marketing) to have an example of outstanding photogravure work to set a goal, that is probably unachievable by me in my lifetime, of quality for the process. 

Various searches on Google yield interesting articles about Strand and photogravures. Anne Hammond's article on Photographic Art and Gravure and Letterpress: A Comparative Study of Paul Strand and Ansel Adams being worthy of a read. A reprint of an article about Jon Goodman by Andrew Wilkes that appeared in Aperture #133 is also worth reading.

I first saw a reference citing The Mexican Portfolio as an outstanding example in photogravure in the excellent text Copper Plate Photogravure: Demystifying the Process.  Amazon.com indicates I purchased that text on July 5, 2007. I wonder what led me to do that?

Printing the Crown Point Press Way

I've come down with something and am mostly staying warm and catching up on reading.

Jon Lybrook mentioned in passing that Crown Point Press was having a sale, and that he really loved their books. I have to say, if it wasn't for Jon's whole-hearted recommendation I would, as a rule, pass up books whose titles start with Magical Secrets About... I went to the web site and on his recommendation bought the three book set. In for a penny, in for a pound. Had I not bought the books, I would have been the poorer for it.

In my search for texts on polymer photogravure I have cast far and wide. There are a few texts on copper plate photogravure of note which I may speak of in the future. But I noticed in my searches that there were some texts for etching that were very relevant in describing technique that could be applied to photogravure.

Magical Secrets about Line Etching and Engraving: The Step-by-Step Art of Incised Lines, by Catherine Brooks is perhaps the most relevant of the three to photogravure. As of today it is on sale from their web site for $46.80 - and it's a steal for that price. The hidden gem inside, that immediately distracted me from Brooks's excellent text up front, is the appendix by Kathan Brown describing the Crown Point Press Way of Printing. Brown, the founder of Crown Point Press in 1962, expounds the view that the artist expresses themselves in the plate, while the printer is responsible for printing the plate consistently. This philosophy is well-matched to photogravure where the making of the plate is the fundamental expression of the image.

That said, I have repeatedly read that the inking of the plate itself is a craft, and it is here where Brown's appendix really gets going. Brown crisply and practically describes how to do that in a repeatable, straightforward fashion.

But that's not all folks, if you order today - oh, sorry, was getting carried away.

Tucked into the front cover of the book is a DVD that includes a 46 minute video of Brown demonstrating the techniques described in the appendix. What an eye opener it is. I have to say, I had no idea what it was supposed to look like when you wiped a plate. Brown demonstrates wiping a copper plate - I have no idea what the practical difference is when wiping a polymer plate. That said, I've paused making my (hopefully last) calibration plate as I review the video and re-read the appendix to try her inking and wiping method. The Magical Secrets web site has additional tips and information.

I bought barrier cream to keep the ink from under my nails (and promises softer hands to boot) and chalk dust for that final hand wipe as Brown suggests. I have a hot plate to warm my Toyobo KM73 plate when inking. I'm poised to try this method.

A hand wiped plate is considered to be the apogee of the printer's art, and involves leaving plate tone (tone in the highlights) that is removed during other wiping approaches. Lybrook I believe mentions that some of the pigments in inks should be considered toxic, so hand wiping the Crown Point Press way is not without its challenge.

In for a penny, in for a pound as I often say.

Inks

I spent this evening completing calibration of my polymer photogravure process. Using Mark Nelson's PDN system I generated process correction curves for the Toyobo Printight KM 73 plates, Rives BFK paper and Charbonnel Universal Black.

I was trading e-mails with Jon Lybrook over the course of the evening discussing Takach's synchronized pressure system (I love it), aquatint screens, exposure times, Kreene, and my printing problems. I must say that uniformly I've found workers in alternative photography processes to be generous with their time and advice. Jon is no exception.

I created two digital negatives on my Epson 3800 printer with two different contrast curves to make polymer plates from and decided to let them dry overnight. I broke free and tackled a homework assignment for my Fine Art Photography class at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, where I am pursuing (albeit slowly) a BFA in photography. My teacher, Cissy Spindler, gave us an assignment to explore visual dynamics and personal expression using paints, pens pencils, pastels etc. to create a drawing/painting/collage - abstract or representational. I read the assignment and went "Huh. Didn't I go into photography specifically because I can't draw/paint/collage my way out of a paper bag?"

Necessity (and a good grade) being the mother of invention, I decided on an abstract that also was educational. Using a palette knife I artistically created color trails of the Charbonnel inks I bought to take for a spin in photogravure. As Jon observed, this was a reason to pursue this process - the wide variety of inks and fine art printing methods available to the practitioner.

From left to right the inks are:

1. Prussian Blue
2. Carmine Red
3. Vermillion Red
4. Sepia
5. Burnt Umber
6. Van Dyck Brown
7. Universal Black 55981
8. Gold

I was struck by several things. Foremost how "black" Prussian Blue is. Very dark, very moody. No happy sky, robin egg blue. I'm going to love this color. Second, the reds - very fluid, Carmine Red being more the red I expect to use. Sepia has promise - a strong black brown, the Burnt Umber and Van Dyck Brown seeming weak in comparison. The Gold has an entirely different, coarser texture. I anticipate a challenge not only in finding the images suited to print with Gold, but working with this ink in general.

Charbonnel has a great booklet on their inks that does not seem to be anywhere on-line (but I'll keep looking - oh, try these pages). Haunt your local brick and mortar art stores - that's where I picked up mine.

I converted my painting to black and white to remind me how much I often love colors.

Early Morning is for Printing

I woke this morning at 6AM to catch up on printing, turned off the clock and slept for another hour. That said, at 7AM I went to my darkroom, trimmed a steel backed Toyobo Printight KM 73 photopolymer plate to size using a sturdy 18" Dahle guillotine paper cutter (using the polymer plate on the bed which retains the flat edge on cut), and printed my PDN calibration tablets and a Stouffer 31 step tablet once again (1m 10s for the positive exposure, 1m 15s for the aquatint screen) to zero in on my standard exposure time for my UV box from Edwards Engineered Products.

Kim Weston told me several years back when I first met him that he wakes at 3AM to do his printing for the day. Having stayed at Bodie House (where Charis Wilson wrote many of the words that accompanied Edward Weston's photographs in books like California and the West), I can certainly attest that Kim was completed printing the previous day's negatives by the time I stumbled for a cup of coffee at 7:30AM. He has been printing early in the morning since the days when he assisted his father Cole and his uncle Brett in the darkroom.

Printing is a quiet time for me, and something I do alone. Compared to the digital darkroom, the traditional darkroom - and more so the very traditional alternative process darkroom (or incandescently-lit-room) - is a very tactile experience. Cutting, paper texture, brushing and cleaning of surfaces, liquids (use gloves please), printing frames, brushes, scrubbing, washing etc. I find it quite engaging in a fundamental way. And I always feel closer to the work compared to my time spent digitally printing.

I have done most of my darkroom study with Kim Weston. I remember much of what he has taught me. There's a dry side and a wet side to the room. One hand is dry, one is wet when transferring across. Clean towels in the middle, wash your hands and dry them thoroughly to avoid contamination of materials. 

Watching Kim work is fascinating. It became second nature to him long ago - efficient, directed, fluid like his shooting with an 8"x10" camera. Kim shoots in the studio with natural light, so printing in the early morning fits. You have a chance to look at previous day's work, and have the daylight hours to shoot some more.

So, those quiet times early in the morning are a time for printing.

I have noticed that photographers by and large who print their own work early in the morning are also accomplished nappers.

Polymer Photogravure - Closeup of the inked plate

The Toyobo Printight KM 73 plate is a steel backed photopolymer plate. It is used primarily in the letterpress industry for commercial applications.

As the catalog on Anderson & Vreeland shows, the KM series comes in a variety of thicknesses, and the plate is harder after processing than other types of plate.

The KM 73 plate can reproduce halftone images up to 200-lines/inch according to the documentation.

The random aquatint pattern imaged on to the plate to the left in the second exposure was accomplished with an 1800 dpi screen purchased from T and R Graphics in Colorado. They worked with Jon Lybrook to create the stochastic, aquatint screen specifically for his use in polymer photogravure. Jon suggests asking for Rick Williams and mentioning his name.

The ink I am using is a classic Universal (Soft) Black etching ink #55981 from Charbonnel. It is available from a number of suppliers. Graphic Chemical and Ink Co. also make a respected line of etching inks. Etching inks have a consistency and pigment designed to work with well in how the ink is lifted by the paper. There are many varieties of black ink from each manufacturer, and many varieties of ink (an enormous color range is possible which is one of the primary attractions of this process for me).

On the right you can see the same magnified area of the plate after inking. The numerals are raised and were cleared in the wiping - the black areas are textured from the aquatint exposure and hold the ink for printing.

I am musing that the photogravure process is demanding and a bit more complex than other alternative processes as you not only have to produce a well-expressed print (the plate) from the original image (what would for other processes be your negative) - but then print that plate as a traditional etching printer would. I've seen references to master plate makers distinguished from master printers - and Jon Lybrook recently made a notation on his excellent site describing polymer plate photogravure that:

The better plates we produce, the more an expert level of skill as a printmaker is required to render the subtleties and details contained in the new plates.

If you were looking for an alternative process to pursue that had a depth and potential for a lifelong learning experience, this may be the process for you!

Starting with Polymer Photogravure

Forget my last post where I said I would be doing cyanotypes. That's a story for another day.

I got distracted doing some initial work at home with photopolymer gravure, or polymer photogravure, or photopolymer etching. This is a process I really want to get my arms around. Let's start with some basics.

Photogravure is an intaglio process perfected in part by none other than William Fox Talbot - the inventor of the negative/positive photographic process. He is not to be confused with Lawrence Talbot. The Talbot-Klic process, as we know it today, was defined in 1878. Traditional photogravure employs a polished copper plate covered with a photo-resist that is chemically etched to create an intaglio plate for printing.

Photogravures can be beautiful. Paul Strand's Mexican Portfolio is considered an outstanding example of the art. Alfred Stieglitz published many beautiful photogravures in his seminal periodical Camera Work.

A new method for doing gravures is possible with photopolymer plates. Developed for the commercial printing industry, photopolymer plates are UV sensitive and harden when exposed. Placing an positive image (such as above) in front of the plate will produce a photographic relief on the plate. I will go into this in a bit more detail in a later post, but to get an image suitable for printing it is necessary to do a second exposure with  an aquatint screen. The screen is essentially a random halftone pattern  that eliminates "open bite" (large inked areas with no texture in the plate to hold the ink).

The plate I am playing with is the Toyobo Printight KM 73. The Toyobo site has a summary of the platemaking process. Add the second exposure with the aquatint screen and you have the polymer photogravure process.

One frustrating thing about alternative photography processes is the lack sometimes of critical information - such as the manufacturer's model number for a Toyobo plate when bought through a reseller. Toyobo makes many different types of plates for different uses. Note that none of the plates were developed specifically for photogravure. The best suited seems to be the Printight KM 73. A similar plate that can be used is the KM 43 - which has a thinner polymer film. A problem will arise if you start mixing plates up as the thicker the polymer, the longer the exposure required. Jon Lybrook suggests that the thicker plate allows for a deeper etch to hold more ink, giving richer blacks.

The plate has a clear protective film on the polymer which is removed prior to use. The unexposed plate shown above has a golden sheen. I'll talk more about preparing the plate later, but I want to note that I dust the plate with talcum powder which is mostly brushed off. The powder helps to eliminate air bubbles when you place the image emulsion side down on the photopolymer surface.

The plate is exposed in two steps: first with the image, and then with the aquatint screen.

The plate to the left was exposed for 1 minute 30 seconds with the positive image. Note the appearance of some detail as the polymer changes color when cured by the UV light.

The plate was then exposed with the aquatint screen after redusting with talcum powder.

The plate is washed by brushing with a soft broad brush in water for two minutes, dried first with some blue lint-free shop towels, and then dried completely with a hair dryer on high heat.

This photopolymer process is also called non-toxic etching or non-toxic photoengraving. No chemicals are used to etch the plate - water is used to dissolve the unexposed polymer. This is a very safe process compared to traditional copper plate etching. 

Once the plate is thoroughly dry, it is placed under the UV light source to fully cure the remaining polymer. The resulting plate is remarkably strong. In industrial applications these plates can easily print to the tens of thousands of images.

The final plate will look similar to the plate to the right.

While pretty rugged when cured, the plates should not be cleaned with water or alcohol which can damage them. Use low odor mineral spirits and baby oil instead.

On a humorous note, I would like to point out that the plate is reversed from where it should be. This plate prints out mirrored. A little mistake.

The plate texture looks very fine - Mark Nelson describes the surface as silvery.

The plate can hold a surprising amount of detail. The real question seems to be whether the process can produce images as detailed as that obtained from the traditional copper plate method. The consensus seems to be no - but the technology of polymer plates advances on.

Here is an enlargement of small text on the exposed plate. The numerals are highlights - raised relative to the darker (washed out during cleaning) background. The random pattern from the aquatint screen can be clearly seen in the area surrounding the numerals - providing the texture necessary to hold the ink in the black areas for printing.

I wanted to post some initial notes on the process. Jon Lybrook's notes are comprehensive and gave me a great head start on the entire process. 

In future installments I'll go into more detail on plate preparation, problems and solutions.

And eventually I'll return to the cyanotype discussion. Did I mention we entered the rainy season here in California? This threw a wrench into my plans for describing how to expose cyanotypes using the sun as a UV source. I suppose it just emphasizes that if you get very far into some of these processes, you will likely be unable to avoid purchasing a UV lightbox.