Using Japanese Paper for Digital Printing of Photographs.

Welcome to this edition of Newsgram. Art is something I’ve always been fascinated with. Every person’s view of what constitutes art is different. And…there are so many different types of art. Personally, I like to play with pottery, wheel-throwing to be specific but on this show I want to focus on the two-dimensional arts. Paintings, drawings, […]

The post Using Japanese Paper for Digital Printing of Photographs. appeared first on WebTalkRadio.net.

Welcome to this edition of Newsgram. Art is something I’ve always been fascinated with. Every person’s view of what constitutes art is different. And…there are so many different types of art. Personally, I like to play with pottery, wheel-throwing to be specific but on this show I want to focus on the two-dimensional arts. Paintings, drawings, prints, and photography. 

I recently came across the work of a man named Carl-Evert Jonsson. Carl-Evert is a painter and a photographer and he likes to use Japanese paper or Washi…

Carl-Evert (Washi) Well, the fibers of these Washi are different from conventional photo paper you see, then can adopt the material you put on it in another way that’s not possible with conventional photo papers. Then there are different kinds of Japanese papers but some can be very difficult to work with but it can be worth it try it at least. 

What Carl-Evert has discovered is that digitally printing photographs on Japanese paper can yield tremendous results, especially if you’re a photographer interested in experimenting with new methods. 

Carl-Evert (It’s Art) And it’s not so complicated, I mean there are many facilities to use all these photo programs to change your pictures but for me it’s more art to do it with my pigments or my way of treating these Japanese papers you see.

In his book Using Japanese Paper for Digital Printing of Photographs, he writes “One issue in modern photography is that we have become accustomed to how photographs should look. This can be overcome with the described techniques [in this book]. The Washi prints may look uncommon, unnatural, or sometimes abstract, depending on the selection of photographs and pigments. …The described technique enables the possibility of experimenting and choosing the procedure which corresponds to one’s own aesthetic opinion. The aim has been to produce pictures that are not so much beautiful as interesting and worthy of attention. 

So the resulting print is not going to look like a typical photo, which is the point here. So I guess the question is why did he choose to do it this way? 

Carl-Evert (Why) Well, I was astounded with some of the results and I wanted to go into it more deeply, that’s what it was. and it just happened. I  had used this paper for painting on and then I said why not use this for my photographs and it worked!

Some of the world’s greatest breakthroughs can be attributed to happy accidents. The key is not being afraid to try new things. Experiment. Push the boundaries of your particular art. You never know what will happen.

Carl-Everts technique involves letting the washi fibers give a softer result to the photographs. It can be tricky to control and the results are unpredictable but that’s all part of the fun. The softness comes from the Japanese paper or Washi because it is more absorbent than Western papers so the ink appears integrated rather than sitting on the printed surface. 

If you want to try it all you need is a computer, a printer, some washi, your photos and a copy of Car-everts book –  Using Japanese Paper for Digital Printing of Photographs.

It’s available now at Amazon.com or Authorhouse.com 

And that will do it for this edition of Newsgram.

The post Using Japanese Paper for Digital Printing of Photographs. appeared first on WebTalkRadio.net.