Love not Hate

What if it has come to be that the islands are my muse?

To read a manual on gum printing is to think it can't be done. Temperature, humidity, paper, gum, size, pigment, UV, bi and di chromates, time, baths, drying, brushing, cutting, registering, mating, framing, negative making. Sigh.

Last Saturday I tried to recreate the magenta negative for Reef Bay that I did not inverse before printing the weekend before and since I had not saved the jpg at the right size it was impossible to recreate - even if the Epson weren't leaving streaks all over the negative transparencies - so I just gave up.

Sunday, the watercolors came out and we went deep into the mangroves for a bit of inspiration. Ron sailed while I tried to paint, and then we both went over to a peninsula and searched out some prehistory, after which we snorkled back to the sunfish and sailed back into the mangroves. (In this image, I try to show how the horizon is not straight.)

This week, I bought a book on digital asset management(DAM) and used my first terabyte drive in an attempt to organize the photo files at work, yet all along thinking of the wrecks of harddrives at home where I struggle with DAM so I hope the book arrives soon and will be of help.

Alas, I searched underwater HDR today and there were several hits. That is a change from a year ago yet there's still time to take it into shipwrecks. I did not get a chance to go back to Isle Royale this summer, yet am fairly certain there's another trip to the Channel Islands coming up in November. Meanwhile, a trip to DC and Williamsburg, VA.

I am up to more CMYK skullduggery. Par Force Estate House, July, 2009. Cyan Channel invert. I rather like it as is, yet am going for gum with four colors. Made up the size yesterday and drew skull and crossbones over the recycled pickle jar(size is simple Deionized Ossein with an addition of toxic glyoxal for hardening). The rest of the process is simple too: convert to CMYK, adjust the levels, seperate into channels, invert, print. Then, size the paper. Dry. Coat paper with the first color, Y. Expose Y negative. Hope for the best. Clear print. Dry. Repeat steps with the remaining three negatives and watercolors mixed with potassium dichromate(CMK). Nothing to it.

(as though this hasn't been done before...)

starting a new suite

America Hill, Sept, 2009 (closed) Let's face it. This ruin isn't going anywhere and it will crumble and fall. Go forward a few centuries and all that's left is a pile of rubble, ancient measurements and a few photographs. I don't know why this plantation is neglected. Why no one has laid claim to the ruins. I would search out how they built on this hill in the first place and which donkey they whipped to put every stone in place. Now, just build, repair, restore, and redocument. With the money we save by good management, would it not be possible?


Lameshure, Sept 20
On the other hand, Lameshure plantation is closer to the road, hence was stabilized as part of the NPS beautification of ruins close to the road project this summer.


ReefBay Greathouse, July 2009 (closed) Neglected. Interestingly, years ago, this was on the docket for restoration. They got all the concrete flown in by helicopter, and then administration must have changed their minds, because now it's one of the creepiest, dirtiest ruins around.




I managed to organize a few gigs in the external hardrives this morning, and edited down images for a suite of no more than five, 24,5 x 10,5 cm gum prints of ruins:
America Hill, Lameshure, Reef Bay Greathouse, and Cinnamon Bay, maybe. It's just a start.