If You Knew Dye Transfer

How many times must a process die before you learn why? The insistence is common, consistent, durable — it lasts longer than the process itself. People of the Net hold the belief that dye transfer would be resurected, successfully, if peopls could see how fantastic it was, particularly in this age of terrible stuff.

You have to see it to believe it… You have to believe it to see it. Is that true in the case of dye transfers?

The role played by product names in art appreciation is high at the sales table, and among the foremost forums.

“Not to find one's way around a city does not mean much. But to lose one's way in a city, as one loses one's way in a forest, requires some schooling. Street names must speak to the urban wanderer like the snapping of dry twigs, and little streets in the heart of the city must reflect the times of day, for him, as clearly as a mountain valley. This art I acquired rather late in life; it fulfilled a dream, of which the first traces were labyrinths on the blotting papers in my school notebooks.”
— Walter Benjamin

understand the magic

Dyes were seen and made by hundreds in the era of Photograph as Object suited to gallery and museum. The growth years of photography in art schools — 1975 – 1995.

Even still, it failed, being superseded by other processes. Direct to print processes such as Type Rs (Cibas, too) for Slide to print. And, Type Cs (chromogenics, RA-4s)for Negative to print. This later printing mode strikes hardest, since Kodak Pan Matrix film was introduced with Kodak masked color negative film

the advantage of real world experience is that is is real.
i read history in the bathroom; philosophy in the bedroom; poetry in the kitchen

If you knew it was a dye transfer would it interest you more? One group of people have made dye imbibition prints over the past decade. Have shown them in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Brooklyn, London … never calling them Dye Transfers, instead, they were dye prints, or ink transfers, and similar names. Some prints were sold, but so too were Epson Inkjets, Fujifilm RA-4s. Without making these as dyes, they sold as images. This was the basic interest of the collective group that had gone to the trouble of learning to make dyes. By make, understand that this meant having matrix film produced again.

Why did they keep this a secret private among themselves?

what would you rather talk about: process or *c, where *c is being defined, refined. Who asks, who would you be limited to talking too, with, if the topic were “process”.

Most people diffuse their interest by a bit of gossip. That mannerism is what diminishes a process to the point of pointless conversation.

Would people dive into dye transfer if given the chance? Nope, one [J* 826 ] of the Neu Ds posted on LFPF, offering a complete working dye transfer lab, including supplies… even going so far as saying she would meet them at an upcoming conference. No one, not even the loudest of counter pounder experts on dye transfer, and all topics color.


2011: 3 students
‘12 : +3
‘15 : +8

labnight

Notepad time. Reminder: these are reminders of other posts, other conversations. Gain what you may from them, much as you would if you overheard a conversation in a gallery or bookshop.

Scattered: Tell your own story, not other’s. A summary, wiggle lines, not a story, not a picture. The generic cut-n-pasted “about.” Note:chord:score. Simplified to the point of childish; not childlike.

The rise of the enthusiasts cursing the young. A half-open door between a dreaded future and a dead end past. The light at both ends of the tunnel.

Brovira Hard: Rhodium Chloride.

Last Dyes

The last dyes are like embers from the fading analog engine. The revivalists are rushing to ride the final fashion like Lauren Lauren’s Leica slung, long lean strappy dangling from her pampered bridal shoulder. Both, she and her camera, accessorizing his success.

Dye transfer prints will decorate many a wall. Some may hang for most of the year.

THE REAL : The show — meaning from the real world. The gallery world seeming more connected to factual effort.

Dye Transfer had an early glow, mystery of process, mystique of object value. The process was time and material consuming, making it in the fuller sense something for advertising, appealing as Veblen Good to the Haute Bourgeoisie.

“I was reading the price list of this lab in Chicago and it advertised ‘from the cheapest to the ultimate print’. The ultimate print was a dye-transfer…. The color saturation and the quality of the ink was overwhelming. I couldn’t wait to see what a plain Eggleston picture would look like with the same process. Every photograph I subsequently printed with the process seemed … better than the previous one.” —William Eggleston in conversation with editor and writer Mark Holborn, 1991

:

CVI, Color Vision Imaging laboratory, Manhattan, 1981. Guy Stricherz (b. 1948) graduated from western Washington University in 1974. He went to New York city in 1977 to work for Frank Tartaro who was one of a dozen masterful printers. Even at that time the process was falling out of use. It had peaked by 1980. Irene Malli (b. 1964) graduated from Cooper Union; after graduation she worked as a printer before answering an ad for CVI in 1989. CVI was moved to Vashon Island from NYC in 2004. Some of their recent clients: Larry Burrows, Bruce Davidson, Thomas Demand, William Eggleston, Mitch Epstein, Ernst Haas, Hiro, Evelyn Hofer, Graziela Iturbide, Zoe Leonard, Arnold Newman, Irving Penn, Christopher Williams.

Frank Tartaro was another user of the idea of “tone zone” masking.


The best memory is based upon your experience. Make your own.

THE IMAGINED: Unfortunately The Last Dyes show brings out the zombie experts of the hobby forums. Killers of a process they view from sideline. The show provides opportunity to talk as tho they had a privileged seat; bring out their old bar counter stories, a chance to repeat their prejudices of process. This is the use for the brag boards.

Question the tale of the salesman. I didn’t call him on his bullshit, so you have been left with his constant crap for a decade. Mea Culpa.

They don’t learn enough because they don’t ask, they aren’t curious. They don’t do enough because they lack courage. They fear failure more than they crave doing.

The false information is imprinted onto the naive minds. False tales aren’t questions, even though he is doubted. Why trust any part of his complex tale if the beginning direction is in error. Part of his ongoing commitment to his fantasy story of his skill is due to my being so bored with him at the St. Regis meeting, I fed him his own ignorance agreeing in order to escape. No one used Tanning Bleach in a commercial practice past 1952 — the mats weren’t sharp, nor durable enough for the uses of commercial printing. There was one use of tanning bleach: schools doing Pan Matrix film– this was rare, caused by group darkroom restrictions. AND the Army never made Matrix Film; they did buy it, while after Korean War, the Department of Defense sold the surplus materials. K&L (Len Z.) bought thousands of sheets which gave him a price advantage for several years.

The Army doesn’t make sandbags nor shoelaces. Not even CCA made their materials; they did have a need for large “trans” materials which Kodak refused to make. They couldn’t. They didn’t have the ready knowledge, so CCA tried two different coaters; NG was able to make the materials using a design provided them by Robert M. of Defender.

Lasting Lie Transfers: turning sales speak into history. The story is now being told by people who didn’t even participate until the story was over
eggleston show brings out stale fish stories; stolen valor from the photo fantists

  • “he was a machinist ” — about Eliot Porter; he wasn’t a machinist. His mode of making DTs didn’t require him to have “made his own” transfer equipment. He was a long time woodworker. He discovered the “black box” printing system. His self-made items are all wooden. No metal, no punch-pin system.
  • ” soft image– dye bleed” — the reason Condax was brought into Kodak was because of the improvement of Tanning Development over Bleach Tanning. Two immediate improvements: sharpness of transferred image, and improved color clarity with existing dyes.
  • ” don’t hold highlights well” — hmm, how about all those suds and softgoods ads? Or, Eggleston’s White Ceiling Fan.
dye diffusion effect

a piece of the elaborate custom equipment made by Eliot Porter for his dye transfer lab.


Google has found my post from 2013, titled: The Last Dye Transfers .. coincidence a long time coming

For those considering another possible use of matrix film– think it as a mask. I did. See this patent which I’d discovered around 1961: https://patents.google.com/patent/US2371746