Digital BW, The Print

> Eric: < Going from a 8x10 to even 16x20 is not that hard, but going to a 
> 30x40 doe
> stake a bit of practice and the known R&D time to coat a bigger piece of
> paper. Heck even getting bigger pieces of paper that has no flaws in it 
> can
> get to be a pain. >
> 
Yeah. I was there in NYC in the studios of Gabe Greenberg (Greenberg 
Editions) and Arkady Lvov (Platinum Editions) watching and observing (and 
documenting) the process of making the Elliott Erwitt platinums (4 images). While 
the production of the large digital negative is pretty straight forward 
(Greenberg did this), the making of the 30x40 contact prints was like stepping 
into time warp. I watched Arkady Lvov carefully as he went through each step of 
the process, from mixing the plat/pall salts, to meticulously spreading and 
brushing the solution onto the Arches Platine paper. You could tell he had 
done this many, many times. (you can see part of this in the short video I 
made)

It seemed to me (and Arkady acknowledged) that the limiting factor (other 
than skill) was the size of the vacuum frame for making the contact exposure. 
Arkady had an old 30x40 frame powered by an antique Russian compressor. So 
he could only make up to 30x40 or so. But that seemed big enough. 

Harald 


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