At this stage of the project, I wanted to get a better idea of how my experiments would look when printed. To do this, I created the following images and sent an order to Spectrum Photographic. The images were all to be printed on Hahnemühle German Etching 310 fine art paper.
The test prints from Spectrum Photographic were received on 14 January 2021. All images were taken using my smartphone.
I was very pleased with the results. Each image has characteristics and details that have been brought out by using the Hahnemühle German Etching 310 fine art paper.
One thing I did notice was a very thin white line running down the middle of this image.
What I had not checked closely enough was when the two mirror images were aligned exactly. This is a reminder to take a bit more care when combining images and zoom in to ensure this doesn’t occur in future. I’ve now updated the file so this the images are totally flush.
I was also quite pleased with the resulting print of this image. Again, the texture of the paper really adds to the ‘depth’ of the finished print.
I also took some close up shots so I would have a record of these details.
This is how the vignetted image looks printed on the Hahnemühle German Etching 310 fine art paper. What I really liked was how the paper became part of the image further, emulating a Japanese print. This is the effect I was hoping for.
Finally, this is the image that was printed on the Hahnemühle Bamboo 290gsm.
It’s smoother and has a warmer tone than the German Etching. I do prefer this and it was useful having these two examples to compare. In future, I would like to try a test print on all of the different Hahnemühle papers using the same image. This would help guage the best substrate.
One aspect that did pique my interest was how the close up images appeared on screen.
This could have a couple of implications for future developments. Firstly, if the PG show is solely online, would I take photographs of the prints printed on specific paper then use the images rather than the digital image?
Secondly, could I create montages, print them then re-photograph these prints in a different way to create further work?
Jennie Meadows MA Photography 