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Home  Glossary |
Fine Art Photography Glossary | | This is an ever-evolving glossary of photography related terms. They range from terms involved at the front end of, as Chris Ogden would say, "making" (not "taking") fine art photos, all the way through to Printing Fine Art Photos (ie, ways of bringing the photographer's artistic vision to life via a tangible print). Whether the photography type is stunning landscapes, intriquing abstracts, edgy man vs. nature, or more traditional corporate, commercial, and portraiture - there's something here for most everyone. We've tried to include content to appeal to other photographers (regardless of if you're shooting with a camera phone, a consumer point and click, a pro 35mm DSLR such as Canon 1dS Mark II, digital medium format, etc.) or collectors of Fine Art! | |
| | Showing All Entries... | Pages: «1 2 | | | | Platinum Print | Platinum and Palladium Prints
A contact print made through a process in which a paper is sensitized with a solution of platinum and iron salts and developed in potassium oxalate. This process, first developed in 1873, was appreciated for its broad scale of middle tones, luminous whites, and high degree of permanency. Among the master photographers in Aperture's Limited Edition Collection who favored platinum printing were Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand. Strand took the process to an exalted level when he began hand-coating commercially prepared sheets with his own formula, then gold-toning the resulting prints.
The platinum process survived in commercial form until 1941 when the high cost of this rare metal caused manufacturers to cease production. But the process enjoyed a renaissance during the 1960s when photographers, who appreciated its broad tonal scale, detail, and permanence as well as the un manipulated contact print, began hand-coating papers. The advantages of hand coating include the ability to mix platinum and palladium salts and to use different types of paper, both of which enable the printer to control the tonality of the prints. Palladium is a more economical metal that can be used interchangeably or in combination with platinum in this process. Used alone, it produces prints with warm black to reddish-brown tones. (with thanks to the Aperture Foundation)
| | | | | Toning | Toning changes the overall color and stability of a photograph. Gold toning, which usually increases contrast, image stability, and permanence, originated during the era of the daguerreotype. It was commonly used with albumen prints in order to impart a rich purplish-brown color. Selenium is currently the most commonly used toner. It slightly increases the tonal range and density of a print, giving it a deeper, richer tone. Like gold, selenium coats the silver in the emulsion, producing a more stable print. Selenium toning can also produce a "split-tone" photograph on certain papers, creating an image with silvery highlights and rich burgundy shadows. Toning a gelatin silver print changes the chemical composition by depositing sulfur, copper, gold, iron, mercury, palladium, platinum, selenium, or vanadium compounds on the surface. This results in a variety of color effects, ranging from brown, green, and blue to purple, red, and yellow hues. (with thanks to the Aperture Foundation)
| | | | | Transparency Print | A positive photographic image on a transparent or translucent support, such as glass or film. Autochrome, the first commercially viable glass plate transparency, was introduced by the Lumiere brothers in 1907, and remained in use until it was supplanted by Kodachrome, introduced by Kodak in 1935. (with thanks to the Aperture Foundation)
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