Journal

Local photographer Paul Nelson is showing some of his amazing images from the series Wild Birds Flying at Gallery 360‘s 10th Anniversary show. The show opens this weekend and Gallery 360 is located at 50th and Xerxes in Minneapolis.

Further details can be found on Paul’s weblog or the gallery’s website.

I’ve finally got the newly designed website off the ground. The other design was based on the WordPress theme Hemingway Reloaded and modified by me, and as much as I loved it, it was growing old and stale. So I tried something a little different recently by introducing some background colour and slightly different fonts using the geekiness that is Typekit, but at its heart this is a black-and-white-and-simple-design kind of website. And hopefully this design, especially with its sidebars, will allow me to add topical and relevant information throughout the site and update items easily.

Matt Peiken of 3-Minute Egg has produced a nice video interview of Beth Dow, Osama Esid and myself talking about our work in the show The Imperfect Print: The Art of the Handcrafted Print.

One of these days someone will explain to me why it is that people still compare the two processes of platinum-palladium and gelatin silver. Of course, we all know that oils are far superior to watercolours…

What must be understood is that these silver prints and this look is what Penn was after. Some of his silver work was bleached slightly in a solution of dilute potassium ferricyanide, which has the effect of reducing the highlights to a pure white. When used in conjunction with a contrasty print to begin with, this can result in a print with very deep blacks and very little detail in the white areas. Penn was a master printer and could have easily replicated the tones in a silver print to look like a platinum if he’d wanted to. But he didn’t, this was his choice. So to compare Penn’s silver work with his platinum prints is wrong.

Bill Taub has died age 86. As senior photographer for NASA from 1958 to 1975 he photographed virtually all of their missions and astronauts from the start of the Mercury project through to the end of Apollo.

Growing up in the UK in the 1960s meant the space race and Apollo missions were a huge part of my life. In this photo, and looking way too cool for his own good, it shows him having a blood test as part of the quarantine procedure for Apollo 11, complete with the requisite short-sleeve white shirt, Ray-Bans, cigarette and a Leica. To a young boy, this was the face of NASA and what space exploration was about!

Cathedral of Learning, platinum-palladium print, 2008

I have a print in this year’s upcoming benefit auction for the Silver Eye gallery in Pittsburgh, PA. It’s a platinum-palladium print, 8″ x 8″ image size on 14″ x 18″ Weston Diploma paper. The following press release is from their website.

Silver Eye Center for Photography
2010 Benefit Photography Auction and Brunch
Sunday, April 25, 2010 11 pm – 2 pm
1015 East Carson Street, Pittsburgh, 15203

Mark your calendar now and plan to attend one of the region’s signature art auctions! This year’s auction, preceded by a champagne brunch, features an impressive selection of contemporary and vintage works donated by artists, galleries and collectors from around the world.

Join us for a first look at the work at the Auction Preview Exhibition, on view March 30 through April 21, 2010. The opening reception is Thursday, April 1, 2010 from 6-9 p.m. Free admission for members; $6 non-members.

Individual tickets are $45 for Silver Eye members; $50 for non-members.

The Silver Eye 2010 Benefit Auction is made possible, in part, through the generous support of Aaronel deRoy Gruber, one of Pittsburgh’s most honored photographers, and her husband Irving B. Gruber.

The media sponsor is WYEP 91.3 FM. In-kind sponsors are Boyd and Blair Vodka, La Fond Galleries, Esser’s Floral, Sam Berkovitz and Concept Art Gallery.

Press Release

Ilford Photo has issued a commitment to all black and white photography enthusiasts that despite other brands’ products becoming discontinued elsewhere in the industry, it will continue to support its existing range of mono photographic products for the foreseeable future.

Numerous black and white specialist products have been discontinued by other manufacturers in recent months and as the only dedicated black and white photographic brand, Ilford Photo issued the following statement today reassuring customers that it has no plans for downsizing its product range.

Steven Brierley, Marketing Director for Ilford Photo commented: “Over the course of our 130 year heritage, Ilford Photo has become more than just another photographic company – many of our customers see us as the custodians of the future of black and white photography. Due to recent news from many parts of the industry that some black and white products are being discontinued, we have had a number of queries from anxious customers asking about the future of our own range. As such, we want to confirm that we have no plans to reduce our range in any way.”

Ilford Photo, through its parent company Harman technology, has pioneered a number of campaigns in the past to demonstrate its commitment to the future of black and white analogue photography, including the ‘Defend the Darkroom’ programme and its calendar of photo education materclasses.

For more information please visit the Ilford Photo website.

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.