Journal

The show at IFP MN Center for Media Arts that I wrote about earlier now has a title and dates. The Imperfect Image: The Art of the Handcrafted Print will open with a reception on March 26th and run through May 16th 2010. The images, from myself, Osama Esid and Beth Dow, will showcase our love for the beauty of the handcrafted print, whether it be in gelatin-silver, platinum-palladium, photogravure or any of the other alternative and historical processes.

In conjunction with the show I’ll be giving a short workshop/demonstration on how to make a platinum-palladium print on Sunday April 25th, noon to 4pm, covering everything from making the digital negative through to printing.

After what seems to have been an incredibly long time waiting for the results, I’m happy to say that I’ve received a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant. This is the second time I’ve received the grant, the first being in 2006, and this time the grant money will help towards producing and printing the Memento series of images.

This body of work is a departure from how I usually work (on film, in black and white and printed with either the platinum-palladium or photogravure process) in that it’s colour and shot digitally. Thanks to the panel of jurors who supported my work – grants are always a great confidence booster!

One other item of note. The British Journal of Photography, which holds the record for the world’s longest continuously published photography magazine, being first published in 1854, has undergone a major facelift. As well as a new look, it has some brand spanking new editorial sections and a return to its monthly format, although the last time it was published monthly was back in 1857!

Death Valley, 2010

So, 2010 has developed into interesting year already. At the end of 2009 I didn’t have much planned either in the form of group or solo shows, no trips to look forward to and the personal projects I had planned to work on had slightly stumbled for a variety of reasons. Yet now, less than three weeks into the year, I’ve been to Las Vegas, the Mojave Desert and Death Valley, I’m scheduled to show work alongside Osama Esid at IFP Center for Media Arts in St. Paul, which will open in March, I’ve been invited to write a piece for Tom Persinger’s new book to be published by f295 and there’s the prospect of some very interesting work from a great client that I worked with last year.

I’ve been scanning a lot of film lately, some of which is for the show and some that I’ve had sitting around waiting for the right time to work on, for far too long. I’ve always felt that an image isn’t finished until I have a print in my hands that I’m happy with, but because I often can’t find blocks of time large enough to complete the process, I usually get as far as editing and then it all falls apart and gets put on hold because of everything else that just happens, deadlines for clients, family commitments etc. The result is, a lot of work that I feel strongly about just doesn’t get finished and that translates to frustration on my part.

So for now, my New Year’s resolution (once again) is to concentrate on my personal work a little more and to try and get past that editing stage…

And finally, Beth has a new weblog that she’s just started over at Indirect Objects, so go, take a look at that.

Beth was recently interviewed by Darren Ching and Debra Klomp Ching of Klompching Gallery for an article by the online magazine At Length.

Back in June of last year I wrote about the death of London printer Bill Rowlinson. Now, Silverprint, one of London and the UK’s leading photo suppliers, has put a podcast on its website (hopefully the start of a series) of a conversation recorded by Martin Reed between Adrian Ensor and Bob Miller in which they discuss Bill’s unique methods and techniques and his career.

Admittedly, a little of the humour may be lost if you never knew Bill, but I was grinning all the way to the studio this morning listening to this. Amongst the topics they cover are his love for for freezing prints that he hadn’t yet finished, his cats, toning techniques that were downright dangerous, his house, its inaccessible darkroom (in many ways) and printing naked; all covered with much laughter and good humour. Keep in mind, if you do listen to this podcast and didn’t know Bill, the person they’re describing was one of the top professional printers in the UK. But I guess all us printers are somewhat off-beam, usually working in solitude and within our own small and unique cosmos.

An exhibition of Bill’s prints as well as Richard Nicholson’s images of darkrooms Last One Out, Please Turn On The Light has just opened at Photofusion, and both Adrian and Richard Nicholson will be giving a gallery talk on December 8th.

Adrian Ensor is one of the finest printers in the UK and has been for over 30 years, having won Ilford’s Printer of the Year award twice. Bob Miller is a leading UK advertising and editorial photographer working on assignments worldwide since 1978.

Adrian Ensor and Bob Miller by Martin Reed

Badlands I

Badlands II

Badlands III

Badlands IV

Badlands V

Badlands X

Ag

The latest issue of Ag magazine (57) contains an article I wrote on the polymer photogravure process, a process that I’ve been using for nine or ten years now. This variation uses polymer plates that wash out in water instead of the toxic acids that the traditional copperplate method uses.

Unfortunately, as far as I know, there is no distributor in the US for the magazine which is a shame, because it’s one of the better magazines currently out there, combining both technical articles with portfolios and book and show reviews. Chris Dickie, the editor and publisher, used to be the editor at the British Journal of Photography and does a fine job with Ag. Some past articles are also available as downloads here.

Italy

At the end of September Beth and I, along with a large proportion of Minneapolis it seems, flew out to Florence for the opening of Cy’s show. This is the show I spent a year or two printing as large 3-colour gum dichromates and which consist of three parts; food (The Four Seasons), flowers (Flowers of Legend and Myth) and portraits of Florentine artists. This last section is the reason I was fortunate enough to visit Florence twice last year – to help Cy photograph these wonderful artists.

The show is at the Accademia, which is home (next door) to Michelangelo’s David. The cast of the statue in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum apparently had a plaster fig leaf that could be easily attached so as not to offend Queen Victoria when she visited…

The gallery had been redecorated since I last saw it and the colour was a perfect match for the prints, as well as the salon-style hanging. Thanks to Roberto for that. It was wonderful to see many of the people we’d photographed a year or so before and see their reactions to the prints. After the show everyone made their way via a well organised (thanks Lorenzo!) fleet of taxis to the post-opening dinner at the Stibbert Museum, a collection founded by an Englishman with eclectic tastes.

Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, Florence

Hors d’oeuvres at the Stibbert Museum, Florence

During all of this, many of us stayed at Le Piazzole, a beautiful villa within a short walking distance south of the city. Paula DeCosse did a wonderful job at organising everything for us, and everyone owes her a big thank you. At the villa there were wine tastings, wonderful catering and a performance in the villa’s amphitheatre on Saturday night by Jamie Marie Lazzara and her friends. Jamie is one of the subjects in the show and is a Liutaio – that is, she makes and restores stringed instruments, many based on those from the renaissance period. It was her violin that Itzhak Perlman played at President Obama’s inauguration. Not only is her work stunning, but she knows the best place to get an amazing pork sandwich and glass of wine in Florence.

View from Le Piazzole, Florence

From Florence, Beth and I travelled by Eurostar train down to Rome for a few days. I can’t imagine why, but I had never been there before and I loved it. We were primarily there for Beth who’s just starting work on another project, and for someone who says she doesn’t shoot much film, that’s a big bag of unprocessed film sitting in the corner of my darkroom right now. “If this were digital I’d be home by now”. A quick train journey back to Florence for one night and then back to Minneapolis – from 80+ degrees to snow in less than 24 hours. At least with Delta I got my meals this time.

More sets of images can be found on Flickr.

Recently the Autotype gravure tissue that was popular with printers using the copperplate method was discontinued – this is a company that’s been in business since the 1800s. So now we have a situation, according to Dick Sullivan at Bostick and Sullivan, where the 500 ateliers around the world who are making gravures, and who rely on this tissue, have to immediately find a replacement.

Dick has been making tissue for the carbon transfer process mechanically for the past few years and naturally he would be the guy these printers would turn to in a situation like this. And they have. So now Dick’s under a lot of pressure to formulate and manufacture a gravure tissue quickly. Very quickly. Many of these ateliers are professional, commercial businesses and rely on a high quality product like this for their survival.

Now, I’m sure that Dick will come up with a replacement product and we hope that until he does, there will be as few casualties from all this as possible. And, of course, polymer plates will one day go the same way as the Autochrome tissue, perhaps sooner than we’d like and they certainly won’t be around for over 100 years like Autochrome. But here’s a situation where isn’t it advantageous to be ahead of the game and be using new technology, instead of being the purist, the traditionalist, relying on products that have essentially been around in the same guise for over a hundred years? I’m certainly not implying that there’s no place for those who wish to strictly follow traditional working methods – I used to be one of those people and you have to admire their dedication – but as a commercial printer in the 1980s I learnt to never entirely rely on one or two particular products because they can, and will, disappear just as quickly as they arrive. This normally occurs after you’re one third of the way through printing an exhibition for a client who just loves the new paper…

But in the last decade I’ve come to love the freedom that new technologies have empowered me with, especially when adapting and merging these technologies. I’m determined not to be in the same situation Frederick Evans found himself in when he gave up photography because the platinum paper he loved so much became unavailable.

Corner Building, Chelsea, New York

Over at the Minneapolis Photo Center on August 18th – next Tuesday – I’ll be speaking about my photography and the various alternative processes I work with. Beth spoke there at the beginning of August and set the bar pretty high, I thought, so I’ll have my work cut out. And although it won’t be a technical talk and full of numbers, I’ll be covering the reasons why I think combining analogue techniques with today’s digital technology can be liberating for photographers.

Black Hill, The Badlands, SD

So here’s another of those “I can’t believe it’s been this long since I last posted” posts. The reality is that I was slightly taken in by the siren that is Facebook and this weblog became even more neglected than usual.

Facebook is great for keeping in touch with certain people, in my case some of those back in the UK, but it’s not enough to keep me happy. I don’t really care if anyone reads this weblog or not, the fact is that I enjoy writing it – when I get the time. I like that I can write posts bit by bit, save them as drafts and publish when ready. So I’m going to try and write and post regularly – or at the very least more often than I have recently.

So, what’s been happening? This summer I’ve been trying to get more of my work finished and printed, with emphasis on the word printed. I still have a lot of images that have got to the edited stage and then just accumulate in a virtual shoebox under the bed. Garry Winogrand reportedly died with over 2000 rolls of film still unprocessed and although I’m not that prolific, I still don’t want anything similar to that as my epitaph. “He died with over 2000 platinum internegatives unprinted…”

Having said all that, we went to the Badlands and the Black Hills at the end of June and although I’ve processed all the film and made scans, I still have a lot of editing to do.

I had a photogravure accepted in the Washington Printmakers Gallery National Small Works exhibition that opened recently. I submitted several pieces and (a little disappointingly) they chose one that had been shown before, Bird’s Nest. It would have been nice if another image had been chosen of course, but I’m really extremely happy because 192 artists entered 740 prints and the juror Jane Haslem eventually chose just 42.

On August the 18th I’m talking at the Minnesota Photo Center as part of the Tuesday Artists’ Talk series, following on from Beth who was just there. I’ll be talking about my photography and how I ended up working with the processes I use and perhaps talking a little about polymer photogravure as well. It won’t be at all technical but will cover how and why combining digital technology with the historical processes from the 1800s, as I am, can be so liberating for photographers today. There are also about 15 prints of ours up on the 3rd floor of the Minneapolis Photo Center – 4, I think, of Beth’s and 11 of mine.

Speaking of photogravure, I’m also writing an article for Ag on the process that will be published in the autumn. Photogravure, or more specifically polymer photogravure, is a process that I’ve been working with for ten years now and absolutely adore, but it was never this easy. When I started I knew of no photographers/printers that I could call or email and ask for help with any one of the myriad of problems I encountered. And at that time I was still using film, an enlarger and chemicals to make the film positives. Nowadays with digital it’s all a lot simpler but over the years I’ve formulated a workflow that is very consistent for my work. And the non-toxic aspect makes it very suitable for the classroom environment.

Coaster from the series Ruins – platinum palladium 18.5×16″

Next month, Beth Dow will be exhibiting work from her new series Ruins at the Jen Bekman gallery in New York, which opens on April 9th and will continue through to May 16th. In New York this weekend though, you can see some of her work at the Joseph Bellows Gallery booth at AIPAD (the Association of International Photography Art Dealers), being held through Sunday at the Park Avenue Armory (67th Street and Park Avenue).

She has a portfolio of work in the current issue of Black and White magazine too, along with fellow Minnesotans and friends, Tom Arndt and Richard Copley.

On this trip to New York, I’ve been invited to have my portrait taken for a project that I’m really excited about. I’ll explain more later, and although I usually hate being in front of the camera, this is special and I’m actually looking forward to it. I’m also going to find time to visit some galleries and museums, something I rarely get the chance to do usually, given the length and purpose of my visits.

It seems there are a couple of Steichen shows going on, at Howard Greenberg and ICP, but the ones I’d really like to see are the Henri Cartier-Bresson images at Edwynn Houk and a show of work that includes E.O. Hoppé, Kertesz, Cunningham, Stieglitz and Weston at Bruce Silverstein. At the other modern end of the spectrum, Greenberg Van Doren and MoMA are both showing the work of the British photographer Paul Graham, who has just won the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, while at the Robert Miller Gallery is work by Patti Smith.

UPDATE I almost forgot Richard Benson’s The Printed Picture at MoMA.

The Printed Picture, a book by Richard Benson that traces the changing technology of picture making from the Renaissance to the present, focusing on the vital role of images in multiple copies. In conjunction with the publication of the book, an educational installation of the material will be presented in the The Edward Steichen Photography Galleries.

Details for this year’s APIS (Alternative Photographic International Symposium) are up on Bostick and Sullivan’s website. Organised and sponsored as usual by the team at B&S, the dates are July 30th through August 1st in Santa Fe.

For a few days, and as part of Photo Santa Fe, photographers, printers and anyone interested in the historical photo processes come together to meet with, and listen to, a wide range of speakers and other like-minded attendees. I’ve been fortunate to hear speak and meet with people such as Dan Burkholder, William Crawford, Mark Nelson, Terry King, Dick Arentz and Dan Welden in the past.

I’ve been twice now, the last being in 2004 when I spoke on the 3-Colour Gum Dichromate process, and on both occasions I came away having met some wonderful people and having learnt a great deal.

This year’s line up of speakers includes Matthew Magruder (wet plate collodion process), Dick Sullivan (carbon transfer process), Seth Irwin (restoration and preservation of photographs and papers), Luther Gerlach (constructing an ultra-large camera for wet plate collodion), Denise Ross (crafting silver gelatin emulsions for paper and film), Stan Klimek (atelier printing for artists and publishers) and Aurelia D’Amore (the legacy of Richard D’Amore).

Further information can be found on Bostick and Sullivan’s website.

Well, the show has been printed, stamped, signed and now shipped. These two cases, each weighing just under 40lbs, are what I have to show for it all – about 100 three-colour gum dichromate prints. The next time I see them, they’ll be framed and hanging on the gallery walls.

A quick panorama of the studio walls with myself, Cy and Bernie.

A wonderful Kodak documentary from 1958 on how film is was made. The original English soundtrack has been lost due to overdubbing into Dutch, but it’s had English subtitles recently added.

Thanks to Martin and Janice at Silverprint in the UK for bringing this to my attention via their website. The film can be found on Dutch photographer Marco Boeringa’s website.

This is the history of the film from Marco’s website.

Kodak 1958 factory film

This fascinating 1958 documentary titled “How film is made”, that documents the production process and birth of photographic and cinematic film, was initially uncovered as part of a heritage in the Netherlands. Although its exact source and purpose are as of yet still unknown, it may have been an instructional film for new employees at Kodak’s factories world wide, and was probably used as a promotional film for the general public as well. The original 16mm film came into the hands of Frank Bruinsma of the Super 8 Reversal Lab in the Netherlands, who decided to have it digitized in conjunction with CINECO and the help of others, and make it available on the internet.

After a member of the Analog Photography Users Group (APUG) pointed out its existence, a call for a translation was made, as the originally American production was dubbed in Dutch, probably in the beginning of the ’60s, and therefore the original English soundtrack lost. A joint effort was setup, including me, Ray Rogers, Denise and Louis Ross, and others. Frank Bruinsma was contacted, who was kind enough to share the digitized version of the film with the APUG community for the purpose of adding subtitles.

After much work, this is the result. We hope you will enjoy watching this historic document. Although modern day film factories still pretty much operate with the same basic processes, the current highly automated and computerized film factories would probably make it impossible to make a similar film at the present time, as much of the inner workings of the machinery is now hidden. And certainly, we would miss out on the lovely intricate details like the employees manually inspecting parts of the film for defects in (almost) complete darkness. Unfathomable in the light of today’s high efficiency economies and societies…

Creating the film base.

This technician is (casually) sliding ingots of silver into a vat of nitric acid to produce silver nitrate.

The White House – Platinum palladium, 18.5×16″

Beth has recently been told that she’s been nominated for the Santa Fe Prize for Photography, organised by Center.

The Santa Fe Prize for Photography recognizes and rewards a gifted and committed photographer who has completed, or is near completion of, a meaningful body of work. This prize was initiated to bring new work to light, and international photographers are eligible.

The award process is by nomination only; photographers cannot apply independently. The prize includes $5,000 and participation in Review Santa Fe; the cash award must be used to complete a body of work or to introduce a completed project to a larger audience.

Her body of work In the Garden is currently being shown at the Joseph Bellows gallery in La Jolla, CA and will be extended for three weeks until the end of March.

On the east coast, Beth will have work at Jen Bekman’s booth during the Pulse art fair in New York, March 5 – 8th, and an exhibition of images from the project Ruins at Jen’s gallery April 9 – May 16th.

It’s one thing to see a fire-breather at an event where you’re a safe distance away, and another when you’re in a darkly-lit studio which is suddenly, and completely, illuminated with a whooosh of ignited fuel.

We were photographing Koren for a project Cy’s currently working on, and because there was no school that day (President’s Day) M&M were dragged screaming and kicking leapt at the chance to help out and assist. It didn’t take much of a fireball though for her to get everyone’s attention.

More images can be found on Flickr.

20×200’s 20% More Ridiculous Sale runs through Saturday.

Collectors who use the coupon code RIDIC at checkout get 20% off their purchase of $50 or more at www.20×200.com.

Further details can be found either here or here.

Once a year Tom Persinger, who organises the f295 Symposium in Pittsburgh, throws a one-day event on the east coast that’s sponsored by B&H. This year it’s on January 18th at B&H’s Event Space and the speakers will include Alida Fish, Craig J. Barber, Dan Estabrook, France Scully Osterman, Jo Babcock, Joy Goldkind, Michelle Bates, Robert Hirsch and Tom Persinger. I was fortunate enough to meet many of these speakers in Pittsburgh last year and know that it will be an amazing event.

From the B&H website:

Over the course of the past year, f295 has been investigating the art of photography through the voices of practicing photographers. The f295 seminar at B&H is a very special day which features 10 artists discussing their ideas, images, rationale, and inspiration. Each presentation will also include reflections on how the three main elements of photography – Light, Time, and Apparatus impact their work. There will be time at the end of the day for questions.

This is a rare opportunity to engage in conversation with some of today’s most ambitious and accomplished photographers using a 21st Century approach in their work.

f295 is pleased to announce that the Camera Club of New York will be hosting an exhibition entitled ‘f295: 21st Century Photography’ from January 16 – 20, 2009. There will be a reception with the artists on Saturday, January 17 from 7-9pm. This show coincides with the f295 Seminar at B&H Photo on January 18 and features work from a selection of artists who have been involved with previous f295 events.

I have one image in the show, a platinum-palladium print from a Diana camera negative, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Illinois (see previous post). The CCNY is at The Arts Building, 336 West 37th Street, Suite 206, New York, NY 10018-4212.

Leaning Tower of Pisa, Illinois

It’s been a busy year.

Early in the year Beth went to Portland, Oregon for the opening of her show at the wonderful Blue Sky Gallery, while I travelled to Pittsburgh to speak at the f295 Symposium and then twice to Florence with Cy DeCosse, organising things for his 2009 show there.

In the summer, Beth and I spent some time driving around the small towns in west-central Wisconsin, gathering material for a collaborative project we’re working on, finally ending up in Chicago for yet another of her projects.

One of the highlights of the year for me had to be in June, when my image Bird’s Nest was published by Jen Bekman’s 20×200, while for Beth it was probably being flown out to San Francisco for a few days by the nice people at Blurb to receive her $25,000 check for winning the first Photography.Book.Now competition.

As for exhibitions, I had work included in several group shows in Phoenix, New York and Pittsburgh, while November saw Beth’s show open at the Photo Center Northwest. That same month saw Beth and I having a joint show at the Iris Gallery in Boston, which then travelled to their other gallery in Great Barrington, where it will remain until early January 2009.

Beth is already organising several shows for 2009 for which I’ll have to start printing soon, as well as finishing the 100+ 3-colour gum dichromate prints for Cy’s show in Florence. That show will open in October 2009 and will be accompanied by a 3-colour catalogue. And yes, we’ll be there…