Category Archives: Personal Series

The other day I got the urge to break out my view camera, and shoot a little 4×5 black & white film.  I love impromptu darkrooms (read: apartment bathroom).  Sure, shooting digital would have been easier and quicker… but it was rainy out- I needed something to do!  Plus, the feeling you get when you turn the lights on and inspect the film the first time is pretty unique.

Our view just isn’t the same when the mountains are hidden by rain clouds…

For me, File>Print just isn’t quite as rewarding as dipping a brush into chemistry, coating a piece of paper and exposing a negative to make a print.  I know I lose a lot of my friends when it comes to this point.  I have some sort of a weird disconnect.  Why would I want to spend 6-8 hours working on a print that more than likely will not come out the way I was hoping?  Honestly, I have no idea.

Every “analog” print I view, whether it be in a gallery, museum, or even school, I seem to get a feeling of closeness to the artist.  Knowing their hand was involved in the printmaking process (well, more than loading a piece of paper into a printer) adds a certain romance to the experience.

I was at the Denver Art Museum a couple weeks ago looking at an albumen print that had to be around 20×24″ in size.  When this image was made, there were no digital negatives- this was straight camera, folks.  Imagine lugging a camera that weighs in upwards of 200+ pounds into the rugged Rocky Mountains and making a negative onto a glass plate.  That’s what it took to make the print I was looking at.  I wonder what the photographer would think of us today?  I’d guess they’d probably laugh hysterically at how soft we are.  We are complaining about “wrong paper size,” banding and noise while we should be embracing the magic of producing a print!  There’s no mystery anymore.  The level of anxiety that once faced young photographers as they put their paper into the developer and waited for an image to (hopefully) appear is no longer.

Here’s to all those that were crazy enough to mix different chemicals together (not knowing they could be hazardous to their health) to figure out which ones would react with light,  so that we could enjoy ourselves just a little bit more.

Here’s a preview of my more personal work that is part of a second graduating portfolio for March.  A complete 180 from the commercial work I enjoy (and for that, I loooove the latest digital technology and printers)  And this is the 5th attempt at printing this particular image…  I believe I finally got the print I was looking for after 3 weeks of searching for it.  The anxiety level was very high.

Here, Here!

The true Colorado day. Morning filled with blue bird skiing at Breckenridge. Afternoon filled with a round of golf, still in ski pants.

Nice groomer to warm up

Followed by some high alpine bowl action.

Then, golf against the perfect backdrop….

Here are some pictures I took of John skiing…

Not many other places you can ski and golf the same day…

Enjoyed a great day of skiing yesterday with John and Nick.  Breckenridge’s snow report said 7″ new snow, but it was deeper in parts of the mountain.

John:

Nick

And a crash sequence:

Quick update: went skiing today with a good friend and recent Ai graduate, John Maznio.  Finally had a fellow photographer with me to get some shots of me skiing for once.  There was good snow to be found earlier in the day.  Coverage is a bit thin in some areas, especially in the trees.  Here are a few pics from the day.  We’re working on a video montage of our ski outings this year.

Me:

John:

John getting fresh tracks:

Me: