Black and White

One of my Platinum prints will be shown in the Mills Pond House Gallery exhibit in St. James, New York that opens in May. Lest anyone doubt that I work in many mediums and often at the same time, here is another case. Black & white photography is a passion of mine. When I began taking photographs and studying at the Southeastern Center for Photographic Arts in Atlanta, I knew immediately that black & white would be my choice. One of my earliest memories is my dad in the darkroom; he let me come in to watch him. I think from that very time I knew photography was going to be important to me, maybe because it was a passion of his.

Although, of course I have done color it never has interested me much; somehow the color print was never true enough no matter how well I learned to print it, it always looked artificial. And print it I did when I was working commercially.

Then there is Platinum with it's warmth and beauty. Glossy was never and is not my thing either. The closest I get to anything glossy is with my encaustic paintings but they are so textured that "really" glossy never happens. "The Argument", the photo above is one of those images that happened without my realizing what it was about. I had spent some time breaking crystal (from my first marriage), mirrors, and then happened upon broken eyeglasses. I still collect eyeglasses usually finding them in parking lots. People evidently just drop their glasses and eventually they are run over by a vehicle several times and presto they are just right for me. I scoop them up and eventually use them for the next project.