Thank you for allowing me to join your forum, and I hope to find ways I can to contribute, share and learn. I am 43 and have been privately doing large format photography in a manner that attempts to grow out of the early Aperture and general Weston/Adams/White/Caponigro tradition since 1990. Before that I used a smaller camera and inherited experience and equipment from my father who photographed 4x5 and 8x10 as a dedicated hobbyist, and learned under Fred Picker who I also communicated with. Four homes I have lived in had dedicated darkrooms built by my father or myself, but now I live married in a small condo and my Zone VI 8x10 enlarger 44" column sits under a tarp (very sad), but I do have an Epson 7800 in the bedroom which can make very good prints, if I had a place to store them (I don't.) So, for my latest project I came up with the idea of doing a book that at first goes through one of the short run printers available that use the HP Indigo line of presses. One I found allows (in theory) complete customization of the CMYK PDF file that you give them, thus allowing greater control of the color, tone and densities of the final product. I would love to communicate with anyone interested in this subject. I would also be interested in talking to people in my area who might benefit from my traditional darkroom equipment in a sharing or other capacity.
As for the rest of my background, briefly, in the mid-1990s I showed, defended and developed my work in an academic setting, obtaining an MFA degree from Hunter College in NY with the support of the late Mark Feldstein, who was a great LF shooter earlier in his career and one of the best printers I ever saw. I had some small post-graduate exhibitions, but moved into a photogaphy related career based on working inside a stock photo house in New York while I was still in school, where I stayed for 7 years. I then worked in a digital photography studio setting for several years as a retoucher, premedia and technical color specialist before moving on to perform similar duties for the music artists under contract with a major printing company for 8 years, where I still am today.
My current book project is purposely limited to the subject of spring progressing into summer in the Adirondack mountains, and is composed mostly of new work but flavored with some architecture and details dating back 30 years or so. The subject is also a metaphor, though, for how to see or transform nature and traditional work into "Fine Art" that may or may not be relevant today. Preparing photos digitally as compared to traditionally is an immense subject I could go on for hours about. The hard part is writing about photography and forcing oneself to make sacrifices that will finish a project that can go on too long. Thank you for your time, sorry for such a long opening post, and I hope to share my work with you in the future and if you think I can help you please drop me a line.
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