Your Tax Dollars at Work

I would say it’s been a while since my last entry. I’ll try to catch up. The Library of Congress has a cool guide to photographic printing processes used in the making of the works in its Prints and Photographs Division. There are many high resolution images on line (more than one million of the 19 [...]

Essential Equipment

If you’re in the middle of inking plates for printing, how do you move a clean sheet of moistened paper to the inked plate on the press without leaving fingerprints? I’ve been taking the Alternative Photographic Processes class at the Academy of Art, from Maureen Delaney,  in San Francisco this semester – in pursuit (part [...]

Precious Resources

Books on alternative processes have a fairly small audience in the greater scheme of things, and once out of print can become as precious as the cost of materials for the process itself. While teaching a platinum printing with digital negatives class with Kim Weston this weekend I mentioned that the bible for the process [...]

Platinum and Digital Negatives Workshop with Kim Weston

I will be once again teaching a making digital negatives class and platinum printing with Kim Weston. We taught this class last year and had a blast. The students made beautiful full tonal range prints very quickly, and learned how to calibrate and manage any alternative process. We had time to explore the New Cyanotype [...]

Modernbook Gallery

One of the coolest things about living in Palo Alto is Modernbook Gallery. A phenomenal photography gallery started November 1, 1999 and now a fixture now in the Bay Area arts scene, the gallery changes exhibits six times a year and can be scene at art fairs like the upcoming LA Art Show which runs [...]

DSLR Camera Remote

My walkaway on a still life photography class was “No excuses photography.” And part of achieving that is perfect lighting – and I found DSLR Camera Remote from onOne software to be a great tool to speeding up strobe placement. When shooting a still life in the studio with strobes, I was trying to get [...]

The “Blue Print” and Its Variations

Finding historical texts on photographic printing processes can be daunting. The Internet has certainly helped in making out-of-copyright tomes more readily available to the alternative process practitioner. I have been scouring Biblio.com and Amazon.com used book marketplace for original texts on what are today alternative photographic processes. I have by far the most success on [...]

A Couple More Texts on Copperplate Photogravure

Finding comprehensive texts on photogravure is a challenge in itself, if you are of the mind to try this extraordinary process. I briefly reviewed Copper Plate Photogravure: Demystifying the Process a few weeks back. It is still in print, and available on Amazon.com at the time of this writing. A second very useful text is [...]

A Complete Unknown

I sat in Charles Gatewood’s kitchen this morning with Dana Smith and Charles sipping tea and talking about his book, photography, bookmaking and celebrities. And viral marketing. Must’ve been something in the tea. Charles Gatewood started me on the path of photography, and has accompanied and encouraged me along the way. But that’s another story. [...]

Thoughts on Copper Plate Photogravure

Back in California, jet-lagged as usual, watching the Criterion Collection Blu-ray version of the Monterey Pop Festival late at night. My son and I flew to our respective destinations Tuesday morning after a five day workshop with Jon Goodman studying copper plate photogravure. I remarked to Jon during the first couple days of the workshop [...]