Was too tired from the early jump into printing this week after my 7-12 hour night shifts and sickness last week. Feel kind of lousy that I only did secondary printing on 12 prints today. I am making up for a bit of that with some easy and boring labour type work. I am flattening my finished 16x20 prints in my large dry mount press, boy is it boring! I give 10 minutes of 250 degree heat to each print which makes them quite flat. The only worry is that I might bend the corners of the print when I close the press, so after I blow air on the photo I insert it and lower the press very carefully. Then I wait 10 minutes and do the same monotonous thing again. Got to put a movie on or read something, this is putting me to sleep!
This is a tedious but necessary part of the process. I of course stopped dry mounting my photographs because it is non archival. When I started selling work to collectors in Florida 6-7 years or so ago I felt it was important to make sure my work was 100% archival (or least as close as I could make it). Those prints (sex worker on white photos) I have been told are now probably part of some collection in a major Florida museum, not sure where exactly. To know they are archival processed and not GLUED onto a piece of mat board is comforting. They have the potential to live long long after I am dust and forgotten.
Unfortunately as part of the non dry mount process I need to do this flattening which works out very well and looks great when the print is mounted between mat boards with archival corners. I can also sign (in pencil) my name directly on the back of the print, along with a title, printing date and edition number. By preparing the photos this way the work this way and its collected (hope hope), it could potentially last hundreds of years. If it needs to be rewashed it can be without having glue and a mat board attached to it, then it can be placed in brand new fresh archival mats by the preservation folks. It is much easier for the archivist people to work with art that is not attached to anything.
I guess that is all worth a little boredom! : )
Of course most of my photos and negs will end up as landfill but still its good to aim high and to try to do your work to the highest standards. What could it hurt to try and seek perfection?
This is a tedious but necessary part of the process. I of course stopped dry mounting my photographs because it is non archival. When I started selling work to collectors in Florida 6-7 years or so ago I felt it was important to make sure my work was 100% archival (or least as close as I could make it). Those prints (sex worker on white photos) I have been told are now probably part of some collection in a major Florida museum, not sure where exactly. To know they are archival processed and not GLUED onto a piece of mat board is comforting. They have the potential to live long long after I am dust and forgotten.
Unfortunately as part of the non dry mount process I need to do this flattening which works out very well and looks great when the print is mounted between mat boards with archival corners. I can also sign (in pencil) my name directly on the back of the print, along with a title, printing date and edition number. By preparing the photos this way the work this way and its collected (hope hope), it could potentially last hundreds of years. If it needs to be rewashed it can be without having glue and a mat board attached to it, then it can be placed in brand new fresh archival mats by the preservation folks. It is much easier for the archivist people to work with art that is not attached to anything.
I guess that is all worth a little boredom! : )
Of course most of my photos and negs will end up as landfill but still its good to aim high and to try to do your work to the highest standards. What could it hurt to try and seek perfection?
