These last few weeks I’ve been busy, working late and generally staying out of trouble with a wonderful project – I’ve been printing an edition of photogravures for Alec Soth of his image Enchanted Forest (36), Texas. It’s published by the Walker Art Center to coincide with Alec’s exhibition From Here to There: Alec Soth’s America, which opens September 12th. The show is curated by Siri Engberg. Follow this link to find related events at the Walker.

Hahnemühle Copperplate paper



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.

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!

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.