Just a few years back, making fine art prints was a rather time consuming activity, and many photographers spent long hours in the dark room fine tuning their skills. It certainly wasn’t for the faint hearted and generally required a dedicated room set aside solely for use as a dark room. The same can be said of course for the digital darkroom in as much as most people have an area set aside just for the purpose of producing digital prints. But in my humble opinion the digital darkroom is a far better environment to spend ones time in pursuit of great print making.
There are still photographers and clients alike that prefer true photographic prints in the sense that these prints were made using the wet process, although the numbers are dwindling on a rapid scale. Many of my clients are amazed at the quality of the prints that I now produce using inkjet printers. Icertainly don’t miss the wet dark room trying to make Ilfochrome prints, and having to match each and every print for colour control, clarity and saturation. The vast majority of fine prints that I see in galleries these days are made using the newest generation of inkjet printers. As technology advances the prints that we are capable of producing are amongst the very best that I’ve ever seen.
Up until the middle of 2007 I used large format cameras in both 4×5″ and 8×10″ for the initial image capture onto FujiChrome film. I’m now fortunate enough to use a Phase One P45+ digital back that can produce true 16bit files that produces files up to around 220mb in their native RAW format. These files are roughly similar in size to a drum scanned 4×5″ piece of film and gives enough information to produce pristine prints at up to 20×24″. From these I produce a Master File using Adobe Photoshop, where I adjust the highlight and shadow points, overall tonal control and contrast, and fine tune various parts of the image using dodging and burning techniques. When the image begins to look good on the screen I begin to produce proof prints and make any adjustments until the print is how I want it. The file is then saved as a Photoshop PSD master file with all of its adjustment layers intact.
I produce all of my images on an Epson 7800 inkjet printer, a 24″ wide format printer that uses Ultachrome K3 inks. Print sizes range from 8×10″, 16×20″ and 20×24.
If you are interested in purchasing prints then please contact me for further details.
Prices are as follows:
8×10″ $125.00.
16×20″ $325.00
20×24″ $450.00