The OP says that he wants something that is visually tactile. I have no idea what that means.
Rob
"Sensuous" might be the best way to put it — something Dionysian in counterpoint to matte's inherently Apollonian nature — but I will try to explain, even though I know that, blowing letters through these thin black-and-white forum straws, I am more likely to sound reedy and fail than to explain what I mean.
IME, there is a three-way tug-of-war between:
- atmospheric (the illusion of the space depicted by the picture)
- print surface tactility (the perception of the picture as an object across which an illusion has been spread), and
- object tactility (the illusion of the surface of the forms depicted in the picture)
Nor are these three ropes equally sized or spaced: the atmospheric pulls nearly opposite that of object tactility (as objects become more tactilely realized, the air in the picture goes thin), while print surface tactility is usually just a clothesline deforming the main tension to the side.
My work has always thematized air — I work to get a perceptible sense of the air that houses the objects depicted, in addition to, as best as possible, fully realized objects. (Air has been, generally, cast from from the photographer's quiver by the sharp needs of advertising.)
For the past few years I have been working on something else, as well. I recently committed some of these images to print, and discovered that my standard printing — matte on Epson Hot Press Natural — resulted in too much atmosphere and print surface tactility, at the cost of what the subject matter needs, which is the thematization of the object surface itself. I'm looking for a printing process that gives more direct sensuality to the surface of forms.
From what I've read — following on the suggestion made by "bill t." — baryta paper is an excellent place to start experimenting.
I don't know "glossies". Any recommendations welcome.
(I don't understand the recurrence of "Cold Press" in this discussion (outside of robgo2's reply). Cold Press is, afaik, less smooth than Hot Press. Am I misreading this?)
