TITLE: Laura Form
MATERIALS: Digital/giclee prints on rag paper
DIMENSIONS: 40" x 50"
DATE: 2000

TITLE: Laura Form
MATERIALS: Digital/giclee prints on rag paper
DIMENSIONS: 40" x 50"
DATE: 1997

DESCRIPTION
Davis Freeman/Illustratypes (May 2003)
Occasionally, serendipity leads to a more interesting way.

Ch'ien / The Creative
The creative works sublime success,
Furthering through perseverance.

In 1987, I was at work on studio images to accompany a bi-annual report. I ran out of 4x5 Polaroid film, which I used to test for lighting and composition. Requiring Polaroid, I grabbed some unusual emulsion from the shelf, Type 53 (film speed 800). As I continued, I noticed that the image on the negative paper backing of the Polaroid film was much more interesting than the positive. As it developed, the "paper negative", as I came to call it, gave a faint sometimes negative sometimes positive image nearly always displayed the "Sabatier effect" (commonly called "solarization"). I found it much more interesting than the positive, "normal", Polaroid picture. I was on to something. I suggested to my client we experiment and try one with these "paper negatives". She agreed. It changed the look of the report and sent me in a new direction photographically.

Originally, I re-photographed the Polaroid paper negative on high-contrast black and white negative film and then reprinted this image as silver gelatin. For the next few years, I experimented with contrast negative masks and darkroom manipulation. Although I produced a number of award-winning images with these methods, by 1994, I thought I had reached a technical dead-end. The potential image I saw in these paper negatives was just out of my technical reach. Rather like the sculptor who "sees" the image in the piece of granite and works to let it out, I saw the finished image in the faint paper negative but lacked the means to bring it out.

By the mid 90s, the digital darkroom opened up possibilities to me and provided tools to achieve my creative vision that had been limited by the conventional darkroom. The original Polaroid stayed the same, however, I was able to achieve the contrast and detail I could only dream about with the re-photographing process I had previously used.

Years more of experimentation have brought me closer to mastering this capricious process. I continue to learn and work with the paper negative.

Regarding the name, "Illustratype". I coined the word in the 90's to give people a handle on the process. I took it from the Latin, Illustra-, "to enlighten". I added "type" in the photographic tradition of "daguerreotype, tintype, calotype, etc.

CONTACT
Davis Freeman
http://www.davisfreeman.com