The Vieux Carre (French Quarter) is a visual dream.
The patina of every surface is extraordinary: centuries worth of
colors and textures blend together with the smells of savory
food, intricately entwined with music and spirits.
Every house, doorway and window is truly unique and different
from the rest. The lush tropical courtyards are a well earned
compensation for surviving the heat and humidity.
My metaphor of Patina
and Obituaries (life and death) photographically
examines the relationship
between the sheer joy of living in the
Vieux Carre and it's foreboding
past: Jovial Mardi Gras vs. bleak Cities of Dead.
Walking through grim St.
Louis Cemetery #1, the history hits you:
You can feel the aura of
those who died tragically from centuries of horrible plagues, floods and
fires
blend with the jaunty fraternity
of past Mardi Gras Kings and Queens.
Throughout it all-
through life and death,
patina and obituaries,
like no other place in the
world,
the Vieux Carre survives
in style and grace.
EXHIBITION
NOTES
The
images displayed in this online version consist of a portion of the main
"gallery" exhibition.
The
original photographs were acquired using a Shen-Hao 4x5 large format wood
field camera,
Pentax
645N medium format camera, TMAX 100 4x5" sheet film developed in D-76,
printed
on Oriental Seagull exhibition fiber paper developed in a custom amidol-based
paper
developer, hand toned in a proprietary sepia/selenium toner process.
The
negatives were printed using a process called "unsharp masking."
This
involves creating a soft, fuzzy positive image of the original negative
on another sheet of film,
then
printing the negative (the original) and the positive (the mask) together
in the enlarger.
This
process gives the artist an image that is sharper, with more shadow detail
and consistent contrast -
an
important tool that I use to ensure that the final output matches my pre-photograph
visualization.
ONLINE
VERSION NOTES
I
am always rather hesitant to place scanned images of my work on my (or
any other) website.
Even
using a high quality flatbed scanner, the images viewed by web visitors
are
only
a reasonable facsimile of an exhibition print.
In
particular, these scans from my large format negatives only display
a
fraction of the emotional content of the original images.
The
online images, due to the scanning process and compression, lack the glow,
warmth,
sharpness and emotional content of the original images.
The
image is present, but its soul is not.
I
invite you to view my prints in person, to feel the entire emotional journey
intended.
- - -
NOTE:
All
images and webpages were designed to be viewed at 1024x768
resolution,
truecolor or highcolor graphics (MORE than 256 colors)
optimally
with a fast broadband connection.
Images
are calibrated to reflect the original photographs.
If
your monitor and graphics card is not accurately calibrated, mixed results
may occur.
FEEDBACK
I
invite you to share your comments and feelings about this online exhibition.
Please
CLICK
HERE to leave feedback.
PRINT
SALES
All
images are available for purchase.
Click
HERE
to go to Print Sales Website.
Click HERE to view Dayton Daily News feature article on this exhibition
Click HERE to view Press Release
Click
HERE to view comments from the Gallery
Comment Book
