Eliot Porter's darkroom with Jim Bones

[jp]

https://youtu.be/loJ_D-OlFYE


https://youtu.be/loJ_D-OlFYE

I've seen Jim's own prints and he has done a great job as well.

[Chester McCheeserton]

Cool – I've never seen the process detailed to that extent before....Looks like a ton of work!

[Renato Tonelli]

Long ago I saw some of Eliot Porter’s prints at an exhibition; I had never seen such beautiful color prints before, or since.
The process is laborious to be sure, but probably unequalled even now.

Has anyone here have had some experience with Dy Transfer?

[Drew Wiley]

I'm just a beginner at it, and simply don't want that much exposure to even weak acetic acid potentially irritating my respiratory system while this epidemic is going around. Strictly b&w printing for awhile. I don't know how many people still practice DT, but a couple of them have commercial capacity involving hybrid techniques. I've gotten good at separation negs completely darkroom style, but still need to reorganize some space for transfer printing. Hard to say when I'll get back to it. I have other non-digital methods of high-quality color printing at the front of the line, time-wise.

[Hartlisa]

I have a Argyle 18 I'm trying to re-home. How would I go about finding someone interested in this camera? It's in very good condition, but I have no idea how to use it.

[Renato Tonelli]

Can the chemistry still be reliably sourced for Dye Transfer? I know Kodak stopped production years ago. It’s a difficult process to begin with and I wonder how challenging it is for any practitioner still making Dye Transfers.

Just curious.

[scheinfluger_77]

OMG! I knew Dye Transfer was a complex process but... Wow! His work showed the elegance of this printing method. Great video.

[Drew Wiley]

The chemicals and dyes are easy to acquire from photographic and dye suppliers,respectively, even if not quite a convenient as the Kodak kits. There were actually multiple manufacturers of dye transfer supplies at one time. Color separation can be done well on TMX film, and masking done with this same film too, even better than old Pan Masking Film if you know certain tricks. Or hybrid methods can be used to arrive at usable separation negatives. Transfer paper can be made the oringinal way by fixing out black and white baryta papers and mordanting them yourself - again, not as convenient, but doable. The achilles heel is matrix film, which is relatively easy to manufacture, but requires a rather costly bulk order. I happen to have a stash of the last run of Ekfe matrix film, and an entirely new version of matrix film as well as special transfer paper has since been made in Germany, but all for sake of exclusive use by a single commercial printer. Punch and register equipment is easy to acquire from printing industry suppliers like Olec Stoesser or Ternes Burton; and lots of it turns up used in the Commercial rather than Camera section of EBay etc. Frankly, relatively few dye transfer prints that I've seen over the years came out better than what you'd expect from modern inkjet methods; but the ones that did, wow! There's a transparency, depth, and cleanness of hue to the dyes that you simply just don't get with inks. It's not a great medium for fine detail, but neither is inkjet.

[Alan Curtis]

I had the privilege of co-teaching several LF workshops with Jim in the late 80's and early 90's. They were based in Santa Fe. Watching him produce Dye transfer was magic. He is a gifted photographer and teacher, now living in Texas.

[Renato Tonelli]

Drew - thank you for the detailed status of the process.
Alan - I didn’t know very much about Jim Bones other than him being Eliot Porter’s printer.
JP - thank you for sharing the video.