I am very bourgeois and, what do they say if you can’t handle the heat? Stay out of the kitchen! Or, if you’re so inclined, pull up a seat and roll up your sleeves. My photographs are unashamedly for living, they are a celebration of life! What can I say? I never wanted to be part of any “movement”, “ideology”, “school” or any given -ism. My pictures are for living, I breathe life into film and hand print each picture through a dying art called fibre based printing. Not one print can ever be the same, isn’t that marvelous, I think it’s just great! Each print an individual, against the machine.
I declare -! I declare -! I declare -! I declare -!
i am obsessed with the printed image in the darkroom away from the light time feels like it slows down from that constant need for speed as the foot searches to put the pedal to the floor i can hear low flying military planes scorch air above me and the steady drone of traffic hums monotonously from the busy roads that circle my dimly lit self built enclosure my darkroom in england is a rather strange place a sort of world within a world where days blend into weeks and weeks blend into months this obsession has led me under the deceptive glow of a red light so dim that it casts all details into a cunning shade making it exceptionally difficult to decipher the tones so i adjust my eyes placing great faith within myself to go about a series of tests to understand how much light needs to fall onto the card i focus the negative on a big vertical board unwrap the huge roll and cut off a section for all that i need test after test after test after test it all starts to take on a life of its own and before long its out of control completely complex so i write everything down to simplify my needs after the first big print is done I access the result knowing full well that i will never settle for anything less than a standard of excellence as unnegotiable as runnymedes stone whats missing whats wrong what's right what will bring the print to life these are the questions i ponder i jot down thirteen notes incessantly but due to my barren wisdom I seek answers from my wife whos leopard like eyes stalk the print like prey to find the kind of united truth within freedom that courage never hesitates to say after a few more adjustments the print is finally made and as a byproduct to all that hair pulling pain over the past four days a happiness begins to slowly rein its really a magnificent and wonderful thing to walk into the dark and leap out into the light with something more than a picture forever locked on a screen all my previous prints lay torn and twisted ripped into pieces one two three four completely destroyed so what makes it so unique nobody can ever repeat it no machine no ai program no photography hack no computer wizard my notes are just notes it will make no sense unless you have put in the work the time patience and effort to understand precisely what it takes and even i am not sure that i can ever repeat it again like in life each print gets birthed unique all full of flaws mistakes and eccentricites this is why I just adore the dying art of fibre based hand printing its as far from perfect than perfection can be and it sounds like a barbaric yawp
The negative projected on the grid.
Test Strips
More Test Strips
Even more test strips
A ripped print that has not passed the standards.
Test prints all ripped up into pieces to be destroyed.
Nearly there! Not good enough just yet!
Bringing out the highlights on the selected print.
After four days, the final print passes my standards of excellence. The print measures approx. 40” x 40” and is now ready for custom framing.