DanieljGregory Rain Study 3The weekend of August 16-18, 2013, I am teaching a workshop that I am really excited about. As a person who shoots and prints images in also sorts of formats and mediums, I am super jazzed to be teaching a workshop that is the best of all worlds. The digital negative, which is an image printed onto materials that allow you to create contact prints in the darkroom, is a great way to bridge the traditional and digital worlds. These digital negatives make it possible to bridge 19th, 20th and 21st century photographic tools. This workshop will provide hands on introduction for making silver gelatin or platinum prints using large digital negatives. Specifically, you will learn how to adjust your files, print negatives, and create silver gelatin prints in the darkroom or platinum prints in the alternative process room. Using this process, you can start with any kind of digital image file. This can come from your digital camera, or from a scanned negative. The course is designed as an introduction to this process, with feedback and help at every level. You may not perfect the process over the course of the weekend, but this intensive workshop will give you a great foundation and a working knowledge of your options when working with digital negatives.

You should come prepared with several digital files suitable for printing between 4 x 5 and 11 x 14 size (3000 x 2400 pixels or larger). Please use an external hard drive or thumb drive rather than a card. Be sure to bring a range of files as some will be more suitable for platinum printing than others — a variety of tonal ranges will provide the greatest number of options.

Paper for platinum printing will be provided, but students should bring some fiber paper (like that used in the B&W darkroom) to experiment with and I’ll provide some that I have tested with as well.

Here is the rough schedule:

  • Friday: working in the lab to adjust files and print negatives.
    • If you are not familiar with the B&W darkroom at the Photo Center  meet  up at 3pm on Friday for an orientation prior to the workshop.
  • Saturday: printing more negatives, then moving into the alt process lab for contact printing
  • Sunday: Alt process lab and darkroom contact printing.
    • On both Saturday & Sunday, students will be free to finish up projects between 5:30pm and 8pm when the Center closes for the day.