The Bromoil process is a very old process that replaces the silver in a traditional photograph with Lithographic Ink. The ink is hand applied in a variety of colors giving the photographic image a very different feel/look to it.
While I have done a lot of work with color film in the past, all of my photographic processes now days are done with black and white film and printed by me in my own photographic darkroom. No photographic labs are used and no final printing utilizes digital means/methods. The only use of digital equipment is for scanning my photographs for use on this website.
Cyanotype, like Platinum/Palladium, is a hand coating process that uses a different type of chemical coating to get the final visible image. Cyanotype is the material used 50 years ago by architects and engineers for "blue print drawings". It is now used also as a fine art medium and produces images that are varying shades of Prussian blue.
This process is the application of artificial color onto a black and white photograph with the use of transparent oils, dyes, and pencils to enhance the image. The process can be time consuming and laborious, but can achieve very different dramatic results.
Photographer
The Platinum/Palladium process is one that has been around since the late 1800's. It all but died out when Silver printing paper was commercially developed, but in recent years has had a significant resurgence in fine art work. The Process utilizes Platinum and/or Palladium metals (rather than silver) where I hand coat the paper myself and expose the print to ultra violet light to get the final image. This process produces images that have a large tonal range in dark blackish/brown tones, and have a very different look from traditional silver images.
Silver prints are the standard type of print types that have been around since the early part of the 20th century. Images are typically black/gray in color. Different paper types have different finishes and can also have a warm or cold look to them. Silver paper also offers many options for adding color to them through the use of chemical toners and/or hand coloring with the application of transparent oil colors.
My wife and I live in La Quinta, CA just east of Palm Springs.
Accolades:
2012 Gold Award Winner - Black and White Magazine
2012 TZIPAC Zebra Awards - Finalist
2013 TZIPAC Zebra Awards - Finalist
2014 People's Choice Award Winner - Black and White Magazine
2014 FANFARE-LA Fine Art Photography Exhibition - Featured Photographer
2014 TZIPAC Eros Awards - Finalist
2014 Published Fine Art Photography Book - "Platinum Women" available on Blurb
2014 Juried Art Exhibition "Black and White" at the La Jolla Art Association Gallery in La Jolla, CA - Featured Artist
My new book "Platinum Women" is now available on Blurb. It's a collection of over 50 of my favorite
images printed in the Platinum/Palladium process.The Blurb address is:
http://www.blurb.com/b/5512251-platinum-women
Photography has been a passion of mine for over 30 years. Artistic creativity runs in my family - my father was a water color painter and my grandfather a professional photographer. In that time, I've tried many different photographic media including black and white printing, color printing from transparencies, photographic silk screens, and more recently, working with alternative photographic processes (those different from traditional printing). Today, I've focused on working with traditional black and white film and various printing methods from those negatives.
I process my film and do all my printing in my own darkroom. I don't use digital cameras or printing. I work primarily with four types of processes - traditional silver, cyanotype, platinum/palladium, and cyanotype over platinum/palladium. I work with a variety of old fashioned large format cameras in sizes of 4 x 5 inch, 8 x 10 inch, and very large 8 x 20 inch film. I designed and built my own 8 x 20 inch ultra large format camera that is one of the very few around that accommodates both horizontal and vertical format images.
For many years, I focused mainly on landscape and nature type of photography being influenced by the work of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. More recently, I've also gotten interested in working with people and models on the line of Irving Penn, a famous fashion photographer from the 40's through the 70's. Working with people has been a terrific learning experience for me and it has turned out to be a much more challenging aspect of photography than I first thought. The creative process between photographer and model is one that has turned out to be a very enjoyable part of my work today.