The following section has been copied from my Work in Progress blog for November 2020:
In August I attended an exhibition by Stuart Clook at the Photospace Gallery in Wellington. Stuart has been experimenting with a number of different printing techniques and I discovered that he was offering a workshop down in Christchurch. The first was in September but that was full so I booked onto the one in November.
For the next two days I learnt all about one of his techniques: Platinum and Palladium printing. One of the best things about this process is you don’t have to have a darkroom or any special lighting (we did because the sun was not out for use) as you can leave the prints to process in the sun – takes hours and we only had two days.
Clook has an amazing space – converted garage and he was happy for photographs to be taken so that you can reproduce the set up when you get back home. It was a steep learning curve for me as I’m not a Photoshop user but once I understood the process (really detailed notes were provided) it became routine. I think the biggest expense if I decided to continue would be the printer as you need to be able to apply enough ink to block the light on the digital negative (hence the use of Photoshop). I’m sure these could be produced by someone with the same printer, just need to ensure the right quality.
I really enjoyed the process and the results and think that I would like to produce some from my final edit and definitely explore this and other techniques for my SYP. I managed to scan the printed results of the workshop – although the scans don’t really show the difference in tones that well – you can see the results below.
The set up can be seen here:
Images from the Platinum and Palladium Printing Workshop
Michele Usher 