Hi.
I participated in one of your PiezoDN workshops two years ago. I never really got the process right when I returned back to Sweden because of various reasons.
For the last year I have been printing a big exhibition for another photographer, on silver, ( called “witnesses”, in Stockholm ), and haven’t really had time for anything else.
Now I’m trying to get back into the PiezoDN workflow, I have a clogged printer and my own head feels like it’s quite clogged also.
I can’t even find the PiezoDN help forum any longer, where is it ? Do I have to pay some subscription fee to access it ?
I know I will have to ask a lot of questions to get back on track but since this is sort of a fresh start, I wonder if I would benefit to move over to Piezography Pro instead ? I have a 4800 printer.
I also saw that you sell a different Platinum process now, and it sounds interesting but since I print mainly in a neutral tone, I wonder if it’s a more finicky process regarding the humidifying part, than the traditional Na2 method.
Hello Johan
I can help answer your question about the platinum process. Cone Editions invited me to teach what is known as the ‘Malde-Ware’ process last year, and by combining it with PiezoDN. It is a print-out process, and is different from the more traditional approaches in a number of other ways. The sensitizer and the processing solutions are simple, as opposed to requiring multiple mix-as-you-coat solutions. The processing is in a sequence of salts that are environmentally and archival very sound. There are no toxic developers or clearing baths. The methods needed to use this process are documented online in great detail by both Mike Ware and me.
The PiezoDN negative-making process is the best I have encountered, and combined with this print-out platinum/palladium method, renders exquisite prints. While all of the details are available online, it is always easier to actually have this demonstrated. Hence, a workshop is always a good booster.
Apart from the technique, there is also the matter of quality and expression, and attention to the particular ‘voice’ of this method in combination to the photographer’s vision is something best done in a face-to-face learning environment. To give you some idea of the process and the work, take a look at some of the work people have done with PiezoDN combined with Malde-Ware pt/pd.
To respond to your concern specifically about the process being more finicky: there are easy, cheap and very precise ways of controlling the humidification of prints, so I would say this is not a finicky process. But like any photographic darkroom practice, it requires some discipline. You will always get a print, but to get a really fine print requires something simple: care, attention, vision.
I’ll leave it to others in the group to comment about how this process compares to the other traditional methods like Na2.
I hope this helps. And good luck with the unclogging. I know how you feel. Sometimes, I wish there was a PiezoFlush for my head.
Hello Pradip and Walker. So nice to hear from you.
Thank you Pradip for taking the time to explain about the process, I did some googling when I saw the new chemicals on The Inkjetmall website, and I’m very curious to try.
I’m really impressed by the work from last summers workshop.
It is very tempting to take part in your workshop this summer and I’m looking into if it could be possible. It’s quite a trip from Sweden to the dark forests of Vermont, but I had a really good time and I would love to come again.
I will order some chemistry from Inkjetmall and try to get a feel of it on my own, you know I’m also printing for a photographer and I will see if it can match earlier work.
Walker, I hope all is well and it would be very nice to meet again.
Did you send me the links, nothing has turned up in my mailbox, and what do you think, should I switch over to Piezo DN now that I will have to clean the printer anyway ?
Hi Walker. I’m sorry, I thought you would send them to my e-mail adress.
Thank you so much for all the info.
I will be ordering some supplies tomorrow so I can start up the process again, the printer is filled with Piezoflush right now and is running ok.
The order will come from Studio Mikael Jansson in Stockholm, but that’s me.
I’m seriously considering taking part in Pradip Malde’s workshop but I’m sure I will come back to you with lot’s of questions before that.
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