Late Afternoon Sun, The Badlands, SD
Late Afternoon Sun, The Badlands, SD
Camera: Rolleiflex 3.5F
Film: Ilford Delta 400
Film Developer: PMK Pyro developer
Paper: Adox MCC 110 paper
Paper Developer: Edwal LPD developer
Upcoming Exhibitions
There are a couple of shows that I’m included in opening soon. The first is in Verona, Italy, as part of the Grenze Arsenali Fotografici festival. Three prints of mine from Otherworld, printed on vintage silver-gelatin paper, are included in the Obsolete and Discontinued exhibition that’s been travelling around Europe in Spain, Germany, Italy and the UK. More information on the project can be found here and the book is available here.
Delphi, Greece
The second is of a small polymer photogravure that was requested for inclusion in a show in Bodenburg, Germany, at the Kunstverein Bad Salzdetfurth (Bad Salzdetfurth Art Association). This is most likely the only time I’ll be showing my work alongside many of the greats, including Louise Bourgeois, Marc Chagall and Jenny Holzer, and so I’m really grateful to Hans-Werner Kalkmann for this opportunity.
“After the first four international group exhibitions in the cycle “Artistic Techniques”, in which we showed drawings, paintings, woodcuts and serigraphs, we turn to the technique of etching with this exhibition. Their broad design spectrum ranges from drypoint etching to etching on a photographic basis. We are pleased that we can show an extensive collection of contemporary works of international importance in our overview.”
— Kunstverein Bad Salzdetfurth website
Direct to Plate Polymergravure
One of the bigger developments of this process over the past few years has been the direct-to-plate method. This involves printing the image directly on a plate using the front manual feed of the printer. The microscopic dots from the printer’s stochastic pattern acting like, and replacing the need for, an aquatint screen. After a brief exposure to UV light (without any screen, film or contact frame) the ink is washed off and the plate processed as normal. After this it’s the same as usual – ink, wipe and pull a print. Not having a screen and film positive eliminates a lot of the obstacles that many fall foul of; dust and insufficient contact being the two main culprits.
I offered this optional way of working to a workshop many years ago but it was still a fairly new method then, and although most of the participants got really good results, a few images, especially those that had a lot of detail in the lighter tones, were lacking. So I’ve been working on getting the adjustment curve perfected and I think I’m there. The next MCAD workshop starts this week and I think it’s going to be a whole lot of fun!
The Badlands, SD — Direct to Plate polymer photogravure (apologies for the low quality iPhone photo)
Studio News
Over at my other website I’ve started posting about projects I’m working on and general studio ‘stuff’. This is me trying to keep my personal work separate from that of the work I do for other photographers and artists.
In October I’m teaching another workshop at MCAD – An Introduction to Clamshell Box Construction. It’s just two Saturdays however – October 12th and 19th. More details and registration on MCAD’s website.
And while we’re at it, take a look at, and follow, my studio Instagram account too — @keithtaylorstudio.
Podcasts and Blogs
Recently I discovered ‘A Small Voice‘, a wonderful podcast of photographers interviewed by Ben Smith. I’m a little late to the party when it comes to podcasts and I usually listen to BBC Radio or Spotify in the studio and the car. Ben’s from London, lives close to my part of the city and has that London-ness that is hard to describe but is what I miss so much. He’s also interviewed a few photographers that I used to know and print for back in the 1980s and 90s.
This blog never really went away or stopped, but it seems that plenty of others are springing back to life once again all over the place. I’ve always felt uncomfortable posting images and thoughts, however random or inconsequential, elsewhere and so I really don’t have much of a Facebook or Twitter presence any more. A story by Signal v Noise, which I wrote about a while back, summed it up nicely here.
Traditional blogs might have swung out of favor, as we all discovered the benefits of social media and aggregating platforms, but we think they’re about to swing back in style, as we all discover the real costs and problems brought by such centralization.
Ironically, as I write this, Instagram and Facebook (and many others) are down.
