Getting to like digital BW — and a brush with Gus Van Sant
After a couple weeks of playing with it, I have to say that digital black and white is growing on me.
The proof, of course, is in the printing. And that has always been digital’s weak spot.
But let’s start with the strengths. Everyone pretty much knows the advantages that digital offers over film in terms of speed, spontaneity and flexibility. Let’s just say that extends, of course, to black and white. And especially so when you’re trying to learn and control a new process. Taking lots and lots of pictures is the only way to go. And that is what digital is all about.
Shooting at ISO 2500 gives something that looks a whole lot like grain, which I like.
Now the printing part. Messing around with my little Epson C88+ with its MIS continuous ink supply filled with Eboni carbon-pigment ink has been both frustrating and fun. Fun, because it’s cheap, spontaneous and unpredictable. Frustrating for many of the same reasons.
I’m continuing to buy good watercolor paper at the art supply house and cut it up into 7.3-by-10-inch pieces, giving me nine prints per full sheet. Which means really cheap, good quality paper. ($4.95 per sheet/nine pieces = 55 cents per almost 8×10.) (That’s because it doesn’t say “photographic” or “inkjet” anywhere on or near it.)
My latest prints have been on Artistico + Fabriano hot-pressed 140 pound paper. It gives the best, deepest blacks I have found so far — and blacks are a challenge to this process — and clean, sharp images where I want them sharp.
The biggest problem I’ve had so far is that painting with acrylics on the prints causes the ink to smudge. Still need to work that out. Fixing with spray fixative works, more or less, but is smelly and unappealing. Next up, I’ll try washing the print first to remove loose ink particles.
There is so much to learn….
Oh, yes, Van Sant: I got over to the Schnitzer Museum this morning for a sneak peak at a new show of Polaroid photos by Andy Warhol and Gus Van Sant, still not installed. More on this later, but it was very cool to see what amounted to half an art show — Van Sant’s half — in something a bit smaller than a cigar box, on a table in the museum vault.
photo: Spring rain, digital black and white, 2010
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