Gum Bichromate

[Short Note/ Ali Uchida]

Madurai is located in Tamilnadu, India.　The main attraction in Madurai is Sri Meenakshi Temple.
This place was so fascinated to me in terms of its architecture, the lights inside the temple
and the decorations in vibrant colors. Here I tried to explore the beauty of the temple through
photography, and printed them in handmade paper with Japanese mineral pigments which consider
as an alternative photographic printing technique call, 'Gum Bichromate Process'.

Gum Bichromate printing process

The Scottish inventor Mungo Ponton is invented this process in 1839.

Process

Gum Arabic is mixed with Japanese mineral pigment and a photosensitive substance called,
potassium dichromate and brushed into watercolor paper and dried. A contact negative
the same size as the finished print is placed on the dried paper then it will be expose in
sunlight or artificial UV lights. The exposure time is depend on the negative.The exposed
paper will be wash to remove any unexposed dichromate and dry. The color print will be
having three negative. They are Cyan, Yellow and Magenta. All the colors will be exposed one by one.