The real fine Art of Photography

The real fine art of Photography

I develop my own film and many of my b&w images are printed in my darkroom.

I love rediscovering what I photographed; what first caught my eye and inspired me to capture an image, reframing it on my enlarger baseboard. I absolutely love everything about the process of darkroom printing; from the light from the enlarger thro' the red'lit gloom, to the very high degree of control needed to create a perfectly printed image.

My framed b&w exhibition pieces were printed by me in my darkroom using traditional chemical development and old fashioned hands-on skills.

For me this is where the real magic of photography happens and the excitement of seeing the image appear in the developing bath never gets old. When I taught photography I couldn't wait to get my students into the darkroom and expose them to the world of b&w photographic printing: literally drawing with light!!

 

Colour photography

I tend only to use colour film for those special landscapes whose hues & tints I simply can't ignore! I use my own specialist large format digital printer. It is especially designed for photography and uses pigment inks. By spraying microscopic dots of rich pigment onto archival-standard paper, the giclée process produces exceptional reproductions of original art and provides fade resistant, museum-quality results

 

Hand coloured "pr-aintings”

However for many Irish landscapes I prefer the subtler approach and print onto speciality coated photographic fibre-based paper. Once the paper is dry I use watercolours & fine brushes to hand­colour, imbueing the softer tones influenced by our more subtle, often cloudy, weather!