Charles Cramer is without doubt one of the photographers whose work I drastically admire. Cramer is without doubt one of the very premier panorama photographers on the planet, having printed his photographic work first utilizing the dye switch course of, then Cibachrome/Ilfochrome (which I’ve additionally printed), and now utilizing digital means. I believed it is perhaps fascinating for individuals to see what was essential to make shade prints as not too long ago as 50 years in the past.
On this video, he talks a few now-defunct shade course of referred to as dye switch. Although I’ve by no means printed utilizing that technique myself, I’ve spoken with a number of totally different practitioners of the method and have had the chance to drool over a portfolio of “dyes” from Eliot Porter that had been in a gallery in Santa Fe. They’ve an influence and a presence that no different media can match. The difficulty is that it was a particularly tough course of. A remorse of my life is that I by no means received one among my chromes printed as a dye, and I want like heck that I had.
One other drawback for dyes is that they had been a lot much less secure than the method that adopted, Cibachrome—later often called Ilfochrome. I may very well be incorrect on this, however I feel that dye switch was one of many very very first shade processes, if not the primary one. Seeing the complexity of this course of ought to make any photographer be thankful for the simplicity of up to date processes.
You possibly can view Charles Cramer’s work right here.
