Latest Show - Recent Black and White Work

My latest exhibit, "Recent Black & White Work" opens Thursday, October 16 at the Argus Museum in Ann Arbor.  The reception goes from 6-8 pm.  Thereafter, the show is open to the public M-F from 9-5 pm.  The Argus Museum is located at 525 West William Street. Parking is available on the side streets, and there are usually a couple of spots open in the lot for visitors.

This exhibit features only photographs I have taken in 2013-14,  and there are four main groupings - Chicago, Fayette State Park, Lake Huron Shoreline, and assorted images from larger projects that are in progress.  Chicago features 6 images taken in less than 12 hours while I was there on a business trip, All were taken with my Nikon 1 camera, which is capable of some most excellent results at low ISO settings.   The second set, Fayette State Park, were taken with an Olympus EPL1 and a C-mount lens, which gives the same out of focus effect as a Petzval lens.  The images are somewhat dreamy at the edges, but sharp in the focus spot.  I chose them over the other film-based images due to the effect from that lens, which gives them a period look.   The Lake Huron Shoreline images were all taken with a Nikon D90 and a 35mm 1.8 lens.  The last set features images from a variety of film cameras, and were shot at various locations in Michigan and New York State.

The 33 prints are all sized at 6x9," matted to 11x14."  I am satisfied with my choice of images, and it was hard winnowing things down.  The venue is adequate for smaller print sizes, and of course, it also keeps my cost down.  Each print is priced at $40-$45.

Spotting prints.  Silver-gelatin prints almost always need to be retouched after mounting (or before).    Small specks on the negative show up as white spots on the prints.  It used to be that one would use "Spot tone" and a fine brush to fix the spots, but "Spotting Pens" with different densities of black pigment are now used, and the ones I am using here were purchased about 8 years ago. The worst is having a pinhole in the emulsion, which shows up as a black dot on the print.  There, it's better to scan the negative and fix those defects in a graphics program and then have the digital file printed as a c-print.  I use Mpix.com for all of my c-prints.