All of the photographs you see here were made with digital cameras. I keep meaning to get back to exposing some 4×5 inch film, but I just never seem to get around to it.
Some of my photographs are very ‘fuzzy’ and I often get asked about this. These images are made by photographing the ground glass of a camera obscura, an optical device invented in antiquity, using a ‘normal’ digital camera.
Although I show many photographs electronically (mainly here and on my blog), I am a staunch believer in the maxim “it isn’t finished until it is printed and matted”. Old school I know, but I am old!
Thus, I make prints. Two kinds of prints: pigment prints and, so called, alternative process prints.
Pigment prints are made using pigment inks in Epson inkjet printers. I currently have two printers, one with Epson inks for color prints and digital negatives (see below) and another with Piezography Pro inks for black and white prints. I prefer rag papers and papers with a matte surface, but I try lots of different things.
Alternative process prints are made by hand coating paper (usually high quality cotton rag paper) with photosensitive materials, exposing the coated paper to ultraviolet light though a negative, and finally washing the print to remove excess light sensitive chemicals so that the image is stable. Since this is a contact printing endeavor, one needs a negative that is the same size as the final image you want.
The negatives I use for these prints begin as digital images. The original color image is converted to black and white, ‘inverted’ to make a negative and printed onto a clear plastic sheet. These digital negatives are then used in the contact printing process described above.
Most of these ‘alternative’ processes were invented in the 1800s and many were once mainstream. Thus, I prefer the term ‘antique’ rather than ‘alternative’. However, ‘alternative’ seems to be the common term these days, so I don’t fight too hard!
A bit more of a description of each alternative process that I use can be found on the individual gallery pages herein where the images are displayed.