These are a couple of photographs which have been taken through the metal print process, it required me to print the selected photographs onto acetate and treat it similarly to working in a darkroom, exposing the work to a certain number of light units onto a thin film which was stuck to a thin aluminium plate. The next step involved re-exposing the plate to light and exposing it through a certain film, followed by soaking the print in a solution which allowed it to wear away the unnecessary film.
I then needed to rinse the plate removing the solution and placing it in a heated darkroom to dry the plate fully and left it for 20 minutes. Afterwards I could start applying the ink to the plate, spreading it on with stiff card I made sure the entire plate was covered, next I had to remove the excess ink with a 'balled-up' piece of scrim. Once the fabric had removed all the ink it could I needed to move onto the next step; using 'directory pages' and the palm of my hand I worked away at the excess ink, constantly needing to move onto another piece of paper as it collected the ink quickly, once done I could move onto the final step.
The last step involved taking the plate and placing it onto the manual printing press, I then put the pre-soaked paper onto and covered the work with the press blanket and moved the plate through the press by hand. The long process complete.
These are some of my final prints:
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| Original Photograph; close-up of decaying doorway |
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| Resulting Print; creating the effect of age |
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| Original Photograph; collapsed wall down alleyway |
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| Resulting Print; strong bold border framing the print well |
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