Heinecken+style+contact+prints

In class we created a couple of contact prints from glossy magazine pages where both sides of the image superimpose on top of each other in the print, similar to how Robert Heinecken worked. We worked in negative rather than positive as we did not have access to the same materials as he. We also printed through clear transparencies and through images printed onto regular bond paper. It is clear that the glossy magazines allow the image to print very cleanly but that the bond paper shows the textures of the fibers.All contact prints below were created under an enlarger with a piece of glass holding all of the elements firmly together. This was printed from transparencies and the photographic paper was developed using coffee and washing soda. The image above and the one below are from an old Martha Stewart magazine. No filters, Printed from one page on top of a single sheet of black and white photographic paper and developed in standard Kodak Dectol developer.

The following image is a contact print from the negative original paper print above. It is left/right reversed because it was printed face to face with emulsions touching to achieve the sharpest focus. However, the softness of the "LG" logo demonstrates that generation loss through print to print contact printing has problems.

The image below is printed through two layers of standard bond paper onto which the images (one of the skull, the other of William Bessai-Saul on the beach) had been printed with a black and white laser scanner.