This week we had one of our newer members, Margo, talk to us about sublimation printing. If like us you’ve no idea what this involves then read on…
A couple of months ago Margo had brought along a piece of slate on to which she had printed a photo that one of our members had taken. We found this intriguing and Margo offered to explain how she had gone about doing this. Along with printing onto slate, Margo had printed images onto t-shirts, hats, mobile phone covers, puzzles and such like. The process that enabled her to do all this is known as sublimation whereby a solid changes to a gas without passing through the liquid stage!?
Margo explained that by printing her images onto special ‘sublimation’ paper, placing this paper onto a material such as the slate or t-shirt and then applying heat to the paper, she is able to transfer the printed image onto the material. The image itself needs to be a mirrored copy of the original as it is placed face-down on the surface it’s being printed on to and the temperature and duration of heat application varies for each material. You can find a copy of Margo’s presentation on our Google Drive page. It was a fascinating presentation and we could see why Margo was interested in pursuing this technique to make unique gifts and mementos for friends and family in addition to a commercial opportunity. Thanks Margo and also for the offer of a free print to our lucky raffle winner, Nicholas.
Following Margo’s presentation we had two more 5-minute talks, one from Dermot, the other from Kathleen.
Dermot wanted to show us some of the photographs he’d taken over the past while and we all enjoyed seeing his photos, some of them for the first time. You can see a small sample of Dermot’s photos below.
Kathleen shared with us her experiences in attempting to attain her AIPF distinction and her disappointments thus far. Basing her efforts around environmental portraiture, Kathleen explained how she’s using only natural light to illuminate her subjects and is trying to capture them at work rather than in a pose. Walking into a workplace and asking to take people’s photos can be a daunting task but Kathleen has found that in almost all circumstances she has been welcomed and has worked away as unobtrusively as possible to capture some fabulous images. Good luck with your next entry Kathleen.
