As a black and
white photographer I withheld printing my Antarctica images (taken
in 1989) until I could find a process that would bring forth
the glaciers' strength and quietness without obscuring their
true subtle coloration. I found this in the giclée printing
process as it is combined with the surface of cold press Arches
watercolor paper. Together the giclée process and Arches
paper offer a pictorial, sensual quality that the images require.
Similar to historical processes such as platinum and gum bichromate,
the image lays on the surface of the paper. Giclée offers
an entirely different visual effect from typical photographic
prints today that have a gelatin overcoat to their images.
To prepare a photographic image for giclée printing a
negative or positive is scanned into a computer. This creates
a digitized file of visual information of the image's color,
tone, form, acuteness, and degree of light. The file is then
used to program a printer (here, Colorspan's Design-Winder) using
eight watercolor dyes. The dyes are mixed into three hundred
and eighty four microscopic jets, which slowly cover the surface
of the paper with five layers to create the finished image.
All color photographs are printed in giclée. |
