Monday, August 13, 2007

Addendum: William Eggleston, dye-transfer and inkjet


The Eggleston 5x7 post below quoted the following from a review:

"The exhibition features 24 large-format colour photographs, which measure 30x20 inches, and document scenes of day-to-day life in Memphis. All of the images were taken in 1974 but have only recently been printed for the first time...

...It’s very evident to see in these 24 dry transfer prints why the new colour printing process got Eggleston so excited. A dry transfer print is produced from three separate negatives made by photographing the original negative through red, green and blue filters, and the result is a sumptuousness of colour that give the images a remarkable vibrancy."

On which I got an interesting follow up post from Adrian Tyler:

"i was at that show in edinburgh last week and they were *not* dye transfers, they were inkjets, very beautiful at that... "


Now, I should have noticed this (I guess that's what you get for writing posts late at night after you've finally got the kids to bed), but it must be close to impossible to get someone to make 30"x20" dye-transfer prints in this day and age. Interesting that Eggleston now seems to have joined a growing number of colour photographers (see Irving Penn for example) who were at one time enamoured of dye-transfer but who have found inkjet prints apparently gives them both more control and also colour at least as good (and an many cases better) than the lusciousness and vibrancy of dye-transfer.

And apparently a bit of "Egg" on the face of Rose Shillito?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought it wierd that they said *Dry* transfer. Must be the new "giclee".

Struan

tim atherton said...

I know - but I'd already made one bad pun (Egg on her face) and I was trying to resist another...

Anonymous said...

seemingly a dye transfer print service can be found here (no price tag given, though):

http://www.chromiraprints.com/

Anonymous said...

According to David Adamson as he posted on a leica forum where he posts regularly:

Last week in Edinburgh for a show of William Eggleston's works that I printed on the prototype Epson 11880, Bill had fun playing with the M8 and showing me the .9 canon lens on his rdp1.

Eric