Recently I wrote about my ageism experience. During the same discussion I spoke of a comment that was made about the size of some of my prints … “if only they were larger”.  This made me thank back to an entry I wrote several years ago  entitled Does Size Matter? Here is part of what I said:

“Short answer — it does, but only to you, because it’s your picture.  That’s right, but make sure the size you make is done for the right reasons.  Very large prints are trendy now, but almost every time I see them in exhibits I am overwhelmed by the size and underwhelmed by the content.  That is because what seems to be on display are large images of boring subject matter, many of which I believe wouldn’t get a second look if they were smaller in size.

This realization was really brought home to me as a result of two shows I saw over the past several years.  The first was a very nice Edward Weston show hosted by the wonderful Michener Art Museum, located where I live, in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.  The second was the recent stupendous Paul Strand exhibit mounted at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  None of the Weston prints were larger than 8×10 because he only contact printed his large format negatives.  With Strand, most were no more than 8×10, with many being much smaller, and the remainder not much larger than 8×10.

These prints forced you to stop, get close and look at them.  You had to really study them to discover their secrets, rather than just walk by each mammoth print some ten feet way.

So I think a small print really has to stand on its content, but just as importantly it draws in the viewer and compels him or her to really concentrate and think about what is going on in the image.

Now be brutally honest with yourself; are you making really large prints because you have been conditioned to think that what’s in?  And while large size will get attention, does it mask content that wouldn’t get a second look in a more intimate size?”

Getting back to the comment made to me … combined with my recent visits to several photography exhibits of well known and/or currently trendy photographers that were comprised completely of quite large photographs … this made think about this question again … does size matter? The answer is YES, YES, and YES!  The problem is that it often matters for all the wrong reasons … mainly surrounding the desire of the photographer and the gallery to sell prints, and for the museums to display what is hot and will draw in paying visitors.  I get it, but does it make compelling art? I don’t think so. Does it fill large amounts of wall space where necessary in homes whose occupants possess significant amounts of disposable incomes? I think so, and if that makes homeowners happy, all and well.

So here is what I said to finish my original entry on this subject … years later, nothing has changed my thinking at all … except that I feel more strongly then ever about it:

“Now be brutally honest with yourself; are you making really large prints because you have been conditioned to think that what’s in?  And while large size will get attention, does it mask content that wouldn’t get a second look in a more intimate size?

And don’t feel compelled to make really large prints because you are using larger negatives.  Negative size should not determine print size because of the available higher resolution.

The vast majority of prints I’ve made have been on 8×10 sheets of paper, which means they are actually smaller than that. There have been a relatively few made using 11×14 paper, based on vision and/or use of a square negative.

So only print those photographs that you believe really have something to say … and when you create the print that captures your vision, make it the size you think works best for that image.”

Stay safe,

Michael

I really would like to have met Morley Baer. I had come to know a number of photographers that knew him from taking workshops with John Sexton and Henry Gilpin in the mid Eighties. I also made a number of trips to San Francisco and Silicon Valley during that time and into the Nineties for my government and consulting work. I would squeeze in a bit of time to drive down to Monterey and Carmel, but I never heard about Baer until sometime after he had passed away in 1985.  Can’t remember how, but then I made sure to see his incredibly clean and precisely seen large format images that were often exhibited in the Monterey area.

For over fifty years Baer used his beloved Ansco 8X10 view camera in a most effective way to capture California’s farmlands, coastline, forests, deserts and buildings. There was an astounding quality and drama about his work that to me remains unique to this day.

Baer made a living as a highly sought after architectural photographer; in 1966 the American Institute of Architects honored him with their Architectural Photography Award. One of his most famous books, Painted Ladies, focuses on San Francisco’s Victorian houses.  What really attracted me to his work though were his wonderful images of California’s beauty.

I’ll cut to the chase … I simply love Baer’s work and own a number of his books that I can highly recommend without reservation, including The Wilder Shore, Stones of the Sur, The Wilder Shore, Light Years, and California Plain: Remembering Barns.

 Throughout his life Baer made both color and black and white photographs. The Wilder Shore, which is one of my favorite monographs, includes both. His method of using tungsten balanced Ektachrome slide film intended for indoor work, that could then be corrected for outdoor application by using a #85B filter to enable a warmer outdoor image than standard Ektachrome was brilliant. Baer then created a softer contrast by overexposing the film one stop and having the color lab develop it for less than normal development time.  The result … beautifully delicate, yet powerful images that are the complete opposite of the usual over saturated and postcard looking color we are so used to seeing! I think his color work is spectacular – right up there with Eliot Porter’s.

Maybe you haven’t heard of Morley Baer, just like I hadn’t. He’s not as well known as Edward and Brett Weston, and Ansel Adams who he knew well and who’s careers his intersected with. I never tire of looking at his work, be it black and white or color and I think in particular that the Wilder Shore is a sublime and under appreciated gem that can often be found for under $50.

Listen … just do yourself a favor … find this book and buy it!  Then track down his other great books! I pretty sure you will be glad you did.

Stay safe,

Michael

There are a number of photographers I follow on the Net. One of my real favorites is Daniel Milnor. I first discovered him when I stumbled across his old Smogranch website. That morphed into Shifter, which focuses not only on photography but other things that are important in Milnor’s life. Milnor a great photographer, but he’s also a gifted writer and communicator … check out his terrific videos embedded in his site or on his YouTube channel!

Awhile back I found something Milnor wrote and captured it because what he said resonated with much of what I feel and have written about. Its been sitting around on a Microsoft Word file for longer than I can remember, but the other day I rediscovered it. I have to apologize … I neglected to capture which of Milnor’s sites I found this on, or whether it was from an interview he might have given that resides elsewhere on the web. I know … %$^&*!

“What did I do with this work? Nothing. Where was it published? Nowhere. For those of you who don’t know me you need to understand how selfish I am. My primary reason for making pictures is to live the experience of making them. This is a greedy, solitary pursuit. My second reason is to record. Data. Visual data. Record it, preserve it, move on, and hopefully have it utilized for historical purposes sometime long after I’m dead. Lastly, I don’t care about being known as a photographer, or building an audience, or selling shit. I’m in heaven simply by being there, talking with people, attempting to understand their course through the obstacle course of life, and from time to time, hearing the occasional thump of the Blad’s shutter.”

– Daniel Milnor

Damn! Milnor really nailed it … for me, and I’ll bet for those that photograph for the love of the work … and the experience to be lived.

Stay safe,

Michael

Many black and white analog photographers don’t realize the range of processes available to make their creative dreams become a reality. Some of these wonderful processes date back to mid nineteenth century, but are still in use today to make beautiful photographic images. I have been lucky to be exposed by many of these processes as a result of association with my fellow Monalog Collective members and I can say enable the creation of beautiful and thought provoking work.

The following layman descriptions of some of these of these processes was prepared by Monalog members Chris Karfakis and Gary Samson as part of the catalog that accompanies the current Monalog Collective exhibit.  I think you will find them interesting and informative. Maybe you might want to give one of them a try … you just might love the results and enter a whole new creative phase!

Members of the Monalog Collective use a wide variety of historic photographic processes to create their fine art images. Below is a brief description of some of the processes employed.

Albumen Print: The most important print material of the 19th century, the albumen print, was the discovery of a French photographer, Louis Desire Blanquart Evrard, and was first announced on May 27, 1850. Hen’s egg white is applied as a sort of sizing to the paper before it is floated on silver nitrate to sensitize it. The image prints out on exposure to UV light, so no developer is required. Most albumen prints were gold toned for added permanence and to shift the print color to a more pleasing tone. A negative the same size as the required print was used to make a contact print. The negative was loaded into a contact printing frame with the sensitized paper and exposed to sunlight for several minutest o sometimes many hours. The back of the frame was hinged so that the density of the print could be checked without losing registration with the negative. Once the print was at the proper density, it was removed and processed.

Wet-Plate Collodion Process: Invented by Fredrick Scott Archer in 1851, a glass plate is coated with collodion that includes soluble iodides. Once the collodion has set up, the plate is placed in a tank of silver nitrate for several minutes there it becomes light sensitive. The plate while still wet is placed into a light tight holder so that it can be exposed in a camera within about eight minutes. After exposure, the plate is immediately developed using iron sulphate revealing the image in 15 to 20 seconds. The image is then fixed, washed, and varnished before use.

Ambrotype: is a wet-plate collodion process invented by Archer and Cutting in 1854. These images are made on black or ruby glass or clear glass (backed by black material) and appear as positives. Using a thin piece of plate iron that has been japanned instead of glass also results in a positive image called a Tintype or Ferrotype. Modern wet-plate photographers often use black enameled aluminum plates to create their images.

Carbon Transfer Print: A layer of bichromate gelatin containing a pigment (carbon black, for example) is exposed under a negative. The gelatin is selectively hardened by light passing through the negative. When the gelatin is gently washed in warm water, the unhardened areas are dissolved away, leaving a positive image of pigmented gelatin. In the late 1860’s, the process became practical when pigmented gelatin layers called “tissues” became commercially available. The resulting prints have exceptional stability and are quite permanent.

Platinum/Palladium Prints: The platinotype was first introduced by William Willis in 1873 and he continued to improve the process through 1887 via a series of patents. The process is based on the light sensitivity of certain iron salts which, when exposed to UV light, reduce platinum compounds to metallic platinum. The resulting prints have exceptional stability. The process was admired for its delicate tonality, enhanced using matte paper. The image color can range from steely gray to warm brown hues depending on the temperature of the developer and the kind of developer used.  This is a contact print process requiring each sheet of paper to be hand coated and then printed with a negative the same size as the desired print size.

Gelatin Silver Print: The gelatin silver process was introduced by Richard Leach Maddox in 1871 with subsequent considerable improvements in sensitivity obtained by Charles Harper Bennett in 1878. The gelatin silver print or gelatin developing out paper (DOP) is a monochrome imaging process based on the light sensitivity of silver halides. They have been made for both contact printing and enlarging purposes by modifying the paper’s light sensitivity. A brief exposure to a negative produces a latent image, which is then made visible by a developing agent. The image is then made permanent by treatment in a photographic fixer, which removes the remaining light sensitive silver halides. And finally, a water bath clears the fixer from the print. The final image consists of small particles of silver bound in a layer of gelatin. This gelatin image layer is only one of the four layers found in a typical gelatin silver print, which typically include the overcoat, image layer, baryta, and paper support. Gelatin silver paper is the paper of choice for most fine art photographers working in traditional analog photography today.

Bibliography:

Care and Identification of 19th-Century Photographic Prints by James M. Reilly

Kodak Publication no. G2-S, 1986

The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes, Third Edition, by Christopher James

Cengage Learning, 2016

Wikipedia

– Chris Karfakis and Gary Samson

Stay safe,

Michael