ABSTRACT
Gum printing experienced a revival in the late 1960s when photography started being offered in university art departments and incorporated with other media, which lead to the rise of the Alternative Photography Movement. In the gum bichromate process, the support material is coated with gum arabic that contains a pigment and with a light-sensitive chemical to produce images in various colors from a contact-size negative. A great deal of control over the final image can be exercised through the following: choice of paper, pigment, localized development, recoating the paper a different colour, or using the same or different negatives for additional exposures. Multiple coats of emulsion and exposure are necessary to build up a deep, rich image. The support material must be presoaked and sized, or the registration of the different exposures will not line up, thus producing blurry images.
