Fine Art Black and White Images
Since I first started photographing, it was all about seeing, taking and printing fine art black and white images.
Learning about film and manual cameras, as a remedial math student I struggled with f-stops and shudders speeds and equivalents and all the precision and math associated with taking beautiful black and white images.
But I got there.
I finally got to experience the wonders of the darkroom and how to develop the not-so-precisely exposed film and print archival silver gelatin prints.
All the original black and white images that you see on the site are silver gelatin images, originally handprinted from 35 mm negatives, by me, on Agfa/ Ilford archival paper, in a or eventually my own darkroom, which was a longtime dream come true. The print sizes varied, though stayed consistent within a series: often 11 by 14 or as large as 16 by 20 inches.
As you might have noticed, with the exception of the traditional portraits, most of the images don't look like classic black and white zone system, no-grain-allowed images.
With very specific intention and lots of experimentation, I was using intense toning/'other' techniques, combined with fast film, hot washes and...to create more painterly- like/rich-looking, grainy images.
'Mary' who you see above, was one of my very first what I would call, 'successful' images. Created during a glorious month at the Maine Photographic Workshops. Mary is a black and white image toned with what was coined by photographer and teacher Kate Carter "French Vanilla" a varying combination of a toxic toner, whose name I can't remember and timing!
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