Rock Form, Scullomie

This image has been shown before, both as an individual image and in a smaller version as part of a set of prints called Stone Sequence, in which it was #1 and preceded Stone Sequence #2, which is also included in this exhibition submission. There is no fancy modern digital jiggery-pokery in this print at all: on the contrary, all the jiggery-pokery is of a very traditional nature, involving a large format camera, Zone System exposure, custom development, careful choice of graded fibre-based printing paper, a lengthy dance around an enlarger in a darkroom dodging and burning different areas and finally exquisitely careful processing, washing, drying, you name it.

This image probably marks the high point in my career as a conventional monochrome printer. The real limitation (for me) of that kind of work is that it is so difficult to reproduce: although I have notes for this print, it took me several days of work to make this print and it would take me about the same again to make another one like it, even if the paper it is printed on (Oriental Seagull) had not been discontinued. It is my hope that once the quality of digitally printed monochrome can meet my needs, the greater consistency of digital darkroom work will mean that I won’t face that problem again. Unfortunately, as I have said elsewhere, digital monochrome is still pretty hard to get right..

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 Scotland License. Please credit Ian A. Young, and for web use please include a link to this page, or to https://iay.org.uk/.