Fine art photography
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Click to View Gallery: [albumen] [formal] [paper] [roses] [thesis] To claim to be a fine art photographer only knowing digital media is just like saying you’re a rock star because you play Guitar Hero. Fine art photography utilizes creative concepts that we human beings have pondered on since our existence. Most of the world has abandoned film completely because it is not as quick and easy to work with as digital. Rather then taking time to perfect an image in the color or black and white dark room people move a couple dials on the computer. Don’t get me wrong digital is great, but for certain things. In fine art one should ascertain knowledge in his or her craft enough to know several methods to produce work that is not alien to the artist. Long ago a group known as f(64) thought that photography should harness all the detail that it possibly can. The aperture is the opening in the camera that allows light to penetrate the negative. The smaller the aperture is the clearer an image at all depths and f(64) is as small as it gets. Using smaller apertures requires more exposure time since less light penetrates the film per a given moment. The cameras they used were very large and used sheet film that was 4x5 inches, 8x10 inches or even larger. The idea is the larger the film the more detail when put on the enlarger. These large format negatives put 35mm to shame. As a fine art photographer I enjoy working with a 4x5 camera both in a darkroom and digitally by scanning my negatives. While some claim that digital cameras have just as much detail as film this relates to 35mm. Ansel Adams was in f(64) and I was taught by a professor who use to photograph with Ansel. Pictorialists on the other hand believed that the conventions of photography should side with that of painters and graphic artists. Some of these photographers would go so far as putting Vaseline on a lens to add a dreamy blur to an image or literally paint over an image to show it was created by the artist’s hand. I love working with my hands and enjoy working with albumen and alternative photographic methods in the darkroom. Before film, photographers coated glass plates in horse pulled wagons and had to drag around a huge camera to expose the plates. Over 150 years ago, they developed the photographs with albumen coated paper. Today, unless you’ve studied photography you would not even know the process existed. Moreover hardly anybody knows how to coat albumen paper, sensitize it with a silver nitrate solution and fix it with sodium thiosulfate. I am one of very few photographers in the world who has worked with albumen and am one of the only photographers on Earth who produces albumen prints commercially for the general public. While other photographers click the “sepia” button and hit print, I can create the real thing using my own hands using a digital-photo-chemical hybrid process. Don’t get me wrong, pure digital photography is wonderful. I use it in all the weddings and for almost all of my portraiture. With it I am able to create wonderful images and try new things constantly. I couldn’t imagine dragging my 4x5 camera to weddings and I think it would scare most children. When I want to create fine art images that show each blade of grass and grains of sand I’ll use my 4x5 with pride. When I want to create images that will last forever and have a beauty unique to the process I'll work with albumen. |
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