Craft Matters

I use historical processes in my own personal work as I find they offer a broad range of expressive capabilities unavailable to the digital printer. I studied with great artists that laid the groundwork for today’s resurgence in those once abandoned processes and they taught me to appreciate their unique aesthetic. I believe that the objectness of the photograph is important. These processes offer a surface and presence that contemporary processes lack. The plastic feeling of contemporary photographs is anathema to the organic qualities of a fine platinum print or even a well made fiber based gelatin silver print. It is a subtlety often lost on viewers unfamiliar with fine photographic prints. Often, It is something younger photographers are unaware of and uninterested in. 

I am interested in these process's hand made analog qualities (that is not to say that I am interested in their unpredictability or technically poorly made qualities). While mistakes are often instructive and may lead to interesting avenues of experimentation, bad techniques is just that, bad technique, Aka a mistake. Many inexperienced alternative process beginning artists statements include praise of their poor craftsmanship. 

Robert Fichter’s early experiments influenced me heavily while I was at FSU. I chose UF for graduate school because Jerry Uelsmann’s darkroom mastery was a great influence to me from as early as 9 years old. The UF legacy and tradition of alternative processes was a major draw to me for grad school. Artists such as Todd Walker’s extensive experimentation with gum, printing presses and other, Evon Streetman’s airbrush paint over Cibachrome, etc... were all part of the University of Florida’s history. 

The platinum nee palladium print process has always had a mysterious draw and allure for me personally. From the precious heavy metal to the extended tonal range to the association with Stieglitz’s appeal for photography as a high art the technique is a romantic process I have been involved with since the 1980s. Recent innovations with digital negatives and experiments with inks and negative negative materials and substrates have made some of these processes more accessible yet there is still a need for strict and meticulous attention to detail and chemistry. This combination of craft, associations with alchemy and romance make it a process I have embraced deeply. The relatively small prints and subtle qualities of a platinum print are often at odds with the current trends to make art photographs big, red and sexy yet therein lies its appeal for me. 

While none of the above is by any means unique to my work, it remains an imperative to point it out as so much of the work that involves making beautiful objects as photographs is lost on the viewer through digital or mechanical distribution of the image. 

The object-ness of photography is often lost on most viewers. When presented with a photograph of an apple (pipe) and asked what is this, most viewers respond with the subject of the photograph, ie its an Apple (pipe). No it’s not, it’s a piece of paper (or metal or screen, or canvas or silk etc.) with some pigment, light, silver, ink etc. that forms an image of an Apple. This transparency is unique to photography. When presented with a painting of an Apple most viewers respond that it is a painting of an Apple, not an Apple. The see through photograph whereas with a painting they stop at the surface. 

For me, its important that a photograph remains both an object and an image.