A Clog and a Batch of Prints

I've had some nice sales recently in local galleries. Most of these have been small matted-and-bagged prints; several of those have been photos of the snowy owls which graced us with their presence for four months this past winter and spring.

A local gallery has an unusual exhibit, for which photographers were asked to provide a selection of their work to be used at inspiration for paintings, carvings, pottery, and works in other media, by artists in the area. About 60 photos from eight to ten photographers (including me) were made available for the painters and other artists. These artists then had several months to create whatever work the photos inspired.

The original photos, and the works they inspired, where hung together for the exhibit. The result is a fascinating show, fun to browse. Some of the artists interpreted the photos literally. These were mostly painters, who created paintings quite similar to the photos. A few painters did much more impressionistic paintings, while others took an abstract approach. There was also some fabric art, one large, painted wood carving, and some ceramic pieces.

Three of the ten photos I offered were selected; I had a framed print of each in the show. I had the good fortune to sell two of those photos right away. The buyers were out-of-towners passing through, so they took the photos at the time of purchase, leaving voids in the exhibit. Having more of the same frames and mats in the same sizes on-hand, I made new prints to fill those voids. Almost immediately, one of those "replacement" prints sold. Naturally, I printed a replacement for that one, too, which I'll deliver to the gallery tomorrow.

As usual, I ran a nozzle check print. Nearly all of the LLK channel was missing. Only a few broken bars at the top of that pattern printed. This is not the first time I've seen LLK go missing. When it's happened before, a normal pair cleaning (LLK/Y pair) has improved the pattern, but not completely cleared the problem. A second normal cleaning of the pair often leaves a few missing nozzles, requiring a "powerful" cleaning to make things right. Fortunately, the most recent firmware update for the 7900 added the capability to execute powerful cleanings on channel pairs. So, for this problem, I ran a powerful clean of the pair right from the start. I then printed a nozzle check, which showed the problem resolved.

A snapshot of a section of my magnetic "viewing booth". This is a 48 x 54 inch

galvanized steel sheet, hung to cover the doorway to a basement crawl space. My 

5000°K bulbs haven't arrived; the awful color you see here was provided by a 

florescent fixture above the left, and daylight on the right. Yikes!

With that out of the way I proceeded to make seven prints. Those are shown above on my magnetic viewing panel. The replacement for the twice-sold picture is at right, printed on B size (11x17 inches) Canson Infinity Platine Fibre Rag 310. Wonderful stuff. The raven picture at left (on GGFS) is my most popular image. The matted-and-bagged 11x14s are cheap to purchase, and sell about as quickly as I print them. I wish I had a few more pictures like that!

  --Jay