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Cracking Coburn by Chris Dickie, from Ag30 |
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Of the 25 images in the Volumes, 20 are platinum/palladium prints and five are gum bichromate over platinum/palladium. It is no surprise to learn that the latter posed the greatest challenge. In addition to the registration problem, the matter of matching Coburn’s originals required experimentation - the fogging-in of some areas being just one example. The exposure for the platinum/palladium stage was reduced in order that subtle information in the image was still retained once the gum had been printed over it. Even a detail such as finding exactly the right brand of Van Dyke Brown to match the pigment used by Coburn proved less than straightforward. In all, the period of experimentation stretched over a good six months before all those involved were fully happy with the results. Having worked so closely with Coburn’s images Paul Caffell has an informed view of the man: ‘He was a strange fellow, [Coburn developed an interest in the occult later in life] there is a darkness to his prints, creating a mood. He was innovative, a sort of Man Ray, [cf the Vortographs] allowing the accident to participate’. And to quote the man himself: ‘I have the very greatest respect for photography as a means of personal expression, and I want to see it alive to the spirit of progress; if it is not possible to be “modern” with the newest of all the arts, we had better bury our black boxes, and go back to scratching with a sharp bone in the manner of our remote Darwinian ancestors. I do not think that we have begun to even realise the possibilities of the camera’. Chris Dickie |
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Wapping, 1904 |
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• Latest Issue |
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Tower Bridge, 1903 |
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Click on the detail to view full frame. All images by Alvin Langdon Coburn Page 3 of 3 |
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