I feel like I have been working non-stop the last few months and have a huge back log of negatives piling up. I’m really looking forward to spending a few weeks in the darkroom this summer getting all the new work printed. Thankfully I am able to get an idea of what I have done from quickly scanning the negatives. There is no substitute for having a contact sheet though.

Here are a few from the first edit of four rolls of my aerial project I started when I was out West a few weeks ago. It was my first time photographing from a plane, and it was exponentially more difficult than I could have imagined. Outside of all the technical considerations, my real concern was being able to photograph knowing that there have been so many great aerial photographs made in the last 100 years. How can you photograph over the desert without thinking of Wlliam Garnett’s or Emmet Gowin’s or David Maisel’s photographs. The only thing you can do is acknowledge them, and trust your vision.

Of the drum scanner sorts that is . . . We just bought an amazing Dainippon Screen SG 747 and I am flying out to California to early tomorrow to oversee the loading onto the truck and make sure nothing can possibly get damaged in transit.

Screen 747

So, my dilemma: I will be there for 5 days. What cameras do I take, and where do I go? I will take the Hass; it goes everywhere with me. And I have an 8×10 on the West Coast but do I really want to bother packing holders and picking up some film? Thinking about making a trip up to the Owens Valley—make a few pictures, maybe do some fishing . . .

Ottsville, PA 2009

I want to remember reading John Szarkowski saying something about Atget know when was best to photograph certain places—the time of year when the trees first start budding, but still allow the light to fully illuminate the scene. I am probably wrong about the direct quote, but that idea has always been in my mind.

Driving along back roads here you can still see deep into the woods but they have that chaotic energy that I have loved photographing the last few years. This is one of the first years I stopped long enough to set up the 8×10 and really push to see what could be made out of the jumbles of branches

The print is an 8×10-inch contact print in platinum/paladium. I have been trying to get the process to work with how I like my prints. Nice rich blacks with no blocking up in the subtle light and dark tones. Something not so easily done, but some negatives are worth the trouble. Making a contact print on Azo that would do all that in 1/10th of the time spent in the darkroom and with 1/10th of the expense, but there is something about the alchemy of platinum process that I love. The coating of the paper and watching it instantly appear in a flash in the developer. But it is the overall simplicity of the process—raw chemistry and light—that has made me keep going with it.

I finally got a chance to look through the new issue of the Photo-Review—the edition with the 2008 competition winners. I didn’t think about the printing being only greyscale until I went to the website to insert some images into this post. I realized most of the selections were originally in color. What was more interesting to me was the images I would not have given a second look as color photographs I found more interesting when presented in black and white and vice versa. Here are a few of what I think are the real gems.

Kimberly Witham, Transcendence (Sleeping Squirrel) Digital chromogenic print, 10"x10"

Laurie Lambrecht, Lake Trees #16, 2004 Archival pigment print, 20"x30"

Joyce Mayer, NOMA #2 Archival inkjet print, 41"x26"

I needed a break from the day job so I took off for a few weeks in May. First California to continue photographing the progress of the Lower Owens River Project and then 10 days in Venice and Spain. Venice was a selfish romantic excursion and Spain was a selfish photographic one. My last day in Spain I found this great stereo-view in a Barcelona flee market. It makes me wish I had taken my stereo holga . . .

Venezia

Instead I had my hand-me-down, scratched and taped-up digital point and shoot that I love to death.

So when I got to Spain the first thing I did was rent a car and head to the coast and spent three days driving, hiking and camping along the Mediterranean north of Barcelona. Here are two from the Cap de Creus National Park.

Cap de Creus, Spain

Cap de Creus, Spain

and this one of a really brave kid in Barcelona

Superior Archival Materials

For the past few years I have been the operations manager of Superior Archival Materials, a small business that provides matboard and custom, computerized-cut overmats for photographers, galleries, museums and collectors. Several months ago, we decided to take some time to reflect on how we could better serve the photographic community. We are proud to announce that Superior Archival Materials is open for business.

Integral to the reorganization has been the purchase and relocation of equipment from its former location in Philadelphia to the Smith/Chamlee Studio in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. As a result we are able to offer even more competitive pricing and faster turnaround time.

In addition to Bainbridge’s line of ArtCare Matboard, we are now able to cut custom window in 8-ply matboard. We have also added Nielsen metal sectional frames and several types of acrylic glazing to our product lineup. Prices for those new items will be available on our website as soon as possible. In the mean time, we are able to provide fast quotes by email for any custom work you may need.

Richard Boutwell
Operations Manager
Superior Archival Materials

I went to Paris Photo for the fifth year last November, and while in Europe I took quick trip to Milan, Bergamo, and Lago di Como. It was more of a vacation than anything, but I did take along a camera.

Here are a few.

New Year’s Resolution #27: Make blog post.

I sort of lost all drive for posting here these last few months. I have been working, traveling some, doing new work.

Now, with freezing weather out, I am in a place to start again with the commentary.

I (finally) have a flickr account. So for now, I will just open up the shoe box and throw up a few from the last year.

Housing development, Rt 309, Mongomery County, PA 2007

I have been learning to make platinum prints for the last few months, and this is one of the first that I am willing to call a final print

The problem I have with printing platinum is nothing I do is a straight print, and everything requires some buring or dodging for local control for the sake of balancing the print. I tried making digital burning and dodging masks printed on transparencies. But, I found that torn pieces of tracing paper and a glue stick work much better and is easier to alter as I’m printing

I finally had a chance to develop my films from my June trip out West. I even developed some other films that were sitting in a box for just over a year . . .

This from my most recent trip to work on my series on the Lower Owens River Project. This was made near the culverts on the South side of Manzanar Reward Road. I have been mapping some of the images on Google Earth. Here is an image from Google Maps of what the area looked like before water was flowing.
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