I am involved this summer in making some fairly large carbon transfer prints, basically 17X23" and 20X27" in size. I have printed most of these images before but for this work, considering the printing size, I am re-scanning them with a drum scanner. The image I am posting today was captured on 5X7 TMY film in Oaxaca, Mexico in 2005. The subject, as you can see, is light and texture, and those two things draw me to many of my images.
If you don't know carbon transfer it is one of the oldest of all photographic processes, invented more or less the way we use it today in 1865. The prints can be any color you like, and the image can be placed on many types of paper. I use both fixed out rag photographic paper as well as 100% cotton rag papers that I size with hardened gelatin.
I expect this project to last several months and as it continues I will post new work. This one is called Rejas #1, is very warm brown, and is on double weight photo fiber based paper. The negatives were printed on Pictorico with an Epson 7800 using a QTR profile that I developed and calibrated to my tissue. One of the fascinating things to me about this print is how the black bars separate themselves from the black background. This particular look is unique to carbon printing and results from the real three-dimensional surface of carbon prints. People who have never seen a well-crafted carbon transfer print before are often startled by the 3-D look, which unfortunately you won't see on a monitor. You have to experience it in real life.
Please feel free to add your carbon prints to this thread.
Sandy
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Originally Posted by Jim Fitzgerald
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