"I heard they tried to combine commentary with dissent-------and ended up with dysentary." -----------------------------------------------Woody Allen

Personal Stuff:

Let's see. I'm a photographic artist. I'm 44, I live in northern New York State (on the eastern end of Lake Ontario), I'm divorced, and I have a 9 yr. old son who is the greatest joy of my life (well, most of the time, anyway). He is starting to show an interest in photography, too. I have a great family and some wonderful friends, and consider myself to be a very lucky man. In addition to photography, my creative pursuits include writing (prose and poetry), painting, drawing, and computer graphics (I enjoy them, I didn't say I was any good), and composing music. I have a fairly laid-back personality most of the time, although I do have a temper, and I have a fairly looney sense of humor which sometimes gets me into trouble. I tend to be a little verbose, in case you couldn't tell. I also hate writing (or talking) about myself, so let's move on!!!

Camera Stuff:

I use large format cameras for virtually all of my creative photography. I have two of them: a 4 x 5 Calumet/Cambo monorail, and a Zone VI 8 x 10. View cameras are big, slow, heavy, clumsy, and just plain inconvenient. They are expensive, the lenses are expensive (I think I see a trend developing here), and the film is expensive. So, why use them? Cameras are tools. You use the tool that will do the job. If I were a sports photographer, a view camera would be a ludicrous choice - kind of like riding a walrus in the Kentucky Derby. No halfway decent carpenter would try to drive nails with a screwdriver. I use view cameras for a number of reasons. 1. I work with stationary subjects (architecture, landscapes, models who are at least trying to hold still). I don't need to worry about "keeping up." 2. Large negatives give greater acutance ( they contain more detail). This isn't about sharpness, but think of it this way. A 4 x 5 neg. has about 20 X the area of a 35mm neg. Let's say you were photographing a subject with both cameras (all other things being equal) and there was a fly in the picture. If the fly took up one grain of silver on the 35mm neg., it would have 20 grains available on the 4 x 5. With the 35mm you get a black dot, with the 4 x 5 you get a fly. Yes, I know it doesn't work that way exactly, but the basic principle applies. This is an illustration, not a physics lesson. 3. View cameras slow me down. Working with a large cumbersum camera forces me to take the necessary time composing the image. I know I shouldn't need to be forced, but there you go. 4. Flexibility. With a view camera, you can swing, tilt, or shift the lens and/or the film. This allows you to have complete control over the image. With these controls, you can manipulate the plane of focus, perspective, etc., you name it. 5. No viewfinder to squint through. Looking at the ground glass on a view camera is almost like looking at a T.V. screen!

Print Stuff:

Platinum/Palladium Printing

History:

The Platinum printing process was first introduced by the Willis Co. of Great Britain, in 1871. During that time (from the 1840's, until about 1920), there was a continuous developement of new and different printing processes for the photographer to choose from. If you look at a sampling of photographs from those years, you will see an enormous variety of styles and effects. From the me of it's introduction, platinum was considered by many, the most beautiful of all printing processes. During the early years of the 20th century, however, things began to change. Social, industrial, and political forces led to the demise of many processes and the standardization of silver gelatin paper in photographic printing. Willis continued to manufacture platinum paper for quite some time, but World War 1 and the Bolshevik Revolution caused the prices of platinum and related metals to skyrocket (Russia was, and is, the leading supplier of those materials in the world). Willis finally folded in 1931. For most of the 20th century, a b&w print looked a certain way. Nearly everything was printed on the same basic kind of paper: silver gelatin. During the 1960s, howwever, an increased interest in photography as a "fine art" led to an increased interst in the older processes. Gradually, ways were found for the photographer re-create the materials which were no long manufacured and a kind of sub-industry began to develope. Today, "alternative" process prints are in high demand by galleries and collectors. Companies such as Bostick & Sullivan speciallize in supplies for platinum and other processes. Once again platinum is the standard against which all the others are measured!

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