Richard C. Miller, 1990.
Photo by Michael Andrews
Selected Exhibitions
The Getty Center, "Outerbridge", March 2009
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, Masters of Starlight, 1987.
Brooklyn Museum, 2004
Manhattan Beach, 1977
Magazines
Something over 300 seperate images, including
Globe Photos
Saturday Evening Post
Woman’s Day
Personal Romance
Family Circle
Parents
American Weekly
Colliers
Life
Time
Liberty
This Week
A short description and history of Gasparcolor can be found at: http://www.phototechmag.com/previous-articles/2001/lipton-mj/lipton3.htm
There is a current effort at producing the text for a book about Dick. Nearly 8 hours of interview have been recorded and some of his archive has been organized, including:
Edward & Brett Weston Prints
Dick’s Carbros; Gasparcolors, Black and Whites & Cibachromes
Magazine covers and ads
His celebrity images including Marilyn Monroe, Jimmy Dean etc.
Process materials, especially for carbros; test prints, bromides , notes, original three-color and Kodachrome film
Major categories of subject matter include: celebrities, portraits, commercial, landscapes, abstracts
Tens of thousands of original negatives and transparencies
Miscellaneous notes, papers, literature, books
The working title is The Perfect Print,
to be published by Medicine Bow Gallery
Portfolios
There are currently two Portfolios available.
The Westons
Norma Jeane
Books
There are three books currently available.
Women In Hats
Freeway
Frozen Moments
Education
Stanford, Pomona College, USC
Richard C. Miller, Video Interview June 2005
The Tri-Color Process
Originally I got the Carbro materials from New York City. The first material was from Autotype. Their material was lousy, a red instead of a magenta, a cyan that was blue. It did not balance. They made materials for years and did not know what they were doing. Later I got materials from McGraw in Glendale.
The reason I have permanent prints is the manufacturer, McGraw Colorgraph, went out of their way to get color fast pigments. They’d test them on the roof. Put them out in the direct sunlight and leave them there for a whole year to check the material, to make sure that they didn’t fade. They went overboard on this.
The printing process took a whole lot of time, but it wasn’t complex. I don’t think you can just do it. But it can be done. It takes judgment.
No matter what kind of color printing you’re doing you’re always thinking in these terms: subtractive colors, more magenta, less yellow. I always printed the Cyan first. That gave you your print density. But that’s something you just found out by doing it.
I don’t think most people would do it because its a tough job.
When hand-coating you’ve got to figure out the balance on the three pigment papers that you’re using, then you have to make prints from them and then you’ve have to balance them again until they are correct.
Then you have to figure the gelatin ratio in order to adhere to the temporary support
You transfer the three gelatin layers to the temporary support after contact under pressure with the three bromide separation prints.
You put down the yellow layer last, otherwise you couldn’t register the yellow layer by hand. It had to go down last and be an opaque yellow. It is the only way to see the registration; it had to be a yellow that is visual, opaque.
You put the opaque yellow on the temporary last, then when you transfer it to the final support the opaque yellow is on the bottom and the transparent magenta and cyan were on the top. So the opaque yellow showed through the other transparent colors and it would work as a three color process.
When I coated my own pigments papers I got the pigment from DuPont.
When McGraw closed down I got the 8x10 enlarger, which I never used.
I picked up all their extra materials. Later I filled trash bins with tri-color pigment papers. I kept enough to make 6 or 7 carbros, but the gelatin has probably hardened and it’s no good now.
But finally the uncoated bromide papers became hard to find.
I have a whole box of uncoated 14x17. I imagine by now that it would be fogged.
You had to be able to count the hairs on their arms in Carbro, you had to be able to register — that was a job.
If the 3 color camera was in registration, if the film did not buckle, they just did not automatically drop in together. You always end up bending and tweaking the support paper — folding, bending, punching holes in the plastic sheer, top and bottom and then drill holes in the sides in order to stretch wires to fix the position while they dried. Originally you had to work with celluloid, which you had to wax, but later we used Mylar. To register the Mylar we used the wires with holes. In sunlight they would dry too fast, unevenly and wouldn’t pull off. If it stuck anywhere the print was ruined.
I would try to do the bromides for several prints one day, then print another day. I just assumed it took about a day to make a print.
It often took 5 or 6 bromides to get the right balance for the three good ones.
I always did the cyan first. That gave you print’s density, then I’d make the other 2 to match that density. If you had a gray scale you were alright, or you could judge flesh tones.
Sometimes I marked the back of the print if I made it with a second bromide.
Never more than twice. The third (pigment gelatin layer) just wouldn’t lift off.
I did do some spotting. It wasn’t a dirty process.
I sprayed pigment in solution. You could mix any density. I loved using the spray gun. And you could make backgrounds by marking paper, then cutting it out and using it for a mask over the face and hair and the rest of the background. You go whhht whhht, over the whole thing, pull off the paper mask and you have a background.
You had to be careful cutting around that outline and you had to use the magnifying glasses.
Just those three colors. You know everyone talks about how you have to have four colors. (To get the density and the blacks.) I am just amazed at the blacks you get here. Beautiful color.
What amazes me is that it is a registered print. I had to register 3 colors and I can’t see any indication that there is any lack of registration here.
Even the highlights show a full tonal range.