Platinum Printing Portfoilo Week

Overview

Platinum Portfolio Week is a concentrated week in the darkroom devoted to one thing: printing a cohesive body of exhibition-quality platinum/palladium prints.

My introductory workshop, Platinum Printing in the 21st Century, teaches the process and is not the place to make final prints for an exhibition. This is the week that fills that gap. You arrive with a defined project and edited files ready to be made into negatives, and you leave with a sequence of final prints made to exhibition standard—matched in tone, contrast, and paper, and sequenced and editioned as a portfolio rather than a scatter of one-off tests.

We work in the traditional platinum/palladium process, with palladium-only and the Na2 process on hand as the image asks for them. Most of your hours are spent making negatives, coating, and printing; the rest go to the harder questions—sequencing, editing, and knowing when a print is finished.

Where this workshop sits

These workshops build on one another. Portfolio Week assumes you already know the process well and want a darkroom/dimroom and a stretch of uninterrupted time to do your best work in it.

• Platinum Printing in the 21st Century (required foundation): how to make a quality platinum print—negatives, chemistry, coating, contrast, and paper.
• Advanced Platinum/Palladium Printing (preferred): where you learn the advanced craft—two negative methods, tonal and contrast control, chemistry, and custom Photoshop curves—through demonstrations, critique, and hands-on printing.
• Platinum Portfolio Week (this workshop): the culmination. You already own the technique; the whole week is sustained studio time to print a finished, cohesive portfolio.

Advanced, or Portfolio Week?  Advanced teaches and refines the process, through demonstrations and critiques. Portfolio Week assumes that mastery and gives the entire week to production: a finished body of work, sequenced and editioned, with Tillman guiding the edit rather than running a curriculum.

Prerequisites

Portfolio Week is not an introduction to the process. So that the week is spent making prints rather than learning fundamentals, prior experience is required.

Required, at minimum: completion of Platinum Printing in the 21st Century, or equivalent, demonstrable platinum/palladium experience.

Preferred: completion of both Advanced Platinum/Palladium Printing and Platinum Printing in the 21st Century. Photographers who have taken both arrive ready to work at full pace from the first morning.

Have you printed platinum elsewhere and are unsure whether your experience qualifies? Please contact  Tillman before registering.

How the week works

You will make your digital negatives in the Maine Media Workshops Digital Lab and print them in the Alternative Process Darkroom. We use Epson printers and Photoshop-based curves to produce the negatives, then move to the darkroom to coat, expose, and process. Maine Media supplies the negative-making materials in the Digital Lab and the processing chemistry in the darkroom; you bring your own metals, paper, and—if you have one—a contact printing frame.

Because the week is production time rather than instruction, plan to arrive with your project edited and your files ready. The more resolved your selection, the more prints you will finish.

What to bring and how to prepare

Your work

• A defined project—the images you intend to print as a portfolio, edited before you arrive.
• Digital files ready to be made into negatives. You will make the negatives here in the Digital Lab; do not bring finished negatives.
• Files as TIFF, sRGB, at least 360 dpi at intended print size.
• A color-managed workflow in Lightroom and Photoshop is assumed.
• A laptop for editing and preparing files. Final negatives will be made using Maine Media Workshop computers. It is not possible to connect your laptop to the MMW print system.

Materials you bring

• Metals: order your kit from Bostick & Sullivan at least four weeks ahead—Traditional PT/PD, Palladium-only, or Na2. Bring at least two kits; additional metal will not be available at Maine Media.
• Paper: Revere Platinum Rag is the current recommendation (Arches Platine is discontinued).
• A contact printing frame, if you have one.

What to bring and how to prepare

Your work

• A defined project—the images you intend to print as a portfolio, edited before you arrive.
• Digital files ready to be made into negatives. You will make the negatives here in the Digital Lab; do not bring finished negatives.
• Files as TIFF, sRGB, at least 360 dpi at intended print size.
• A color-managed workflow in Lightroom and Photoshop is assumed.
• A laptop for editing and preparing files. Final negatives will be made using Maine Media Workshop computers. It is not possible to connect your laptop to the MMW print system.

Materials you bring

• Metals: order your kit from Bostick & Sullivan at least four weeks ahead—Traditional PT/PD, Palladium-only, or Na2. Bring at least two kits; additional metal will not be available at Maine Media.
• Paper: Revere Platinum Rag is the current recommendation (Arches Platine is discontinued).
• A contact printing frame, if you have one.

Provided by Maine Media Workshops

• Processing chemistry (developers and clearing baths).
• Negative-making materials in the Digital Lab.

Have your supplies in hand for the first morning; the week’s value is the printing time, and there is none to spare on missing materials.

Note on kits: Zia-type and Malde-Ware processes are not covered.

Print sizes

The primary focus of the week is producing a cohesive portfolio. The largest print you can make in the Maine Media Alternative Process Darkroom is 16×20 inches; you may work at any size up to that maximum, provided you bring enough metal and paper.

A single 30×40 print may be possible in Tillman’s own darkroom, by arrangement—if you have the metal for it and either purchase the 30×40 paper from Tillman or bring your own.