ABSTRACT
The term gumoil was recently coined to describe an innovative method of making polychromatic photographic prints that was derived from an earlier, but rather grainy, method described by Kent Wade to produce monochromatic images. The gumoil method can be mastered by people with a measure of photographic and artistic ability who want to explore some very different ways of creating images of considerable beauty. Although the gumoil method is unabashedly new, it was nonetheless constructed logically and nostalgically from premodern components that eminently suit it now for making pictures that are somewhat reminiscent of its antecedents. As with the other premodern, hand-coated methods, gumoil differs substantially from the current universally understood arid expected method of photographic printing. Contemporary photographic technology permits a printer to make dozens of finished prints in an afternoon work session. Gumoil, and some of the other hand-coated methods, require several weeks to produce a single finished print.
