Afewimages: Black and white fine art photography

Edward Steichen

This is a photograph made by Edward Steichen. “The Big White Cloud” has been an inspiration for ages. As was almost all of Steichen’s work. And still is. I bought every book i could find and well…maybe, i hope, its influence can be seen in my photographs.

Old printing processes

I have experimented a few years with old printing processes such as Gum Bichromate and Photogravures. The photo on the left is a photogravure, a very difficult process in which you engrave a copperplate by making the plate light sensitive and bring it in contact with a large negative. In a sour bath you etch away the darker parts of an image. When done right, you can achieve a very large tonal scale. Very, very beautiful but also time consuming. The photo is made in Prague. The swan, by the way, was already dead…

I also made gum bichromate prints. Which is a bit easier to achieve. I could do this at home. I made my own ‘sunlight’ uv lightbox and printed a lot of images in different tones. The next three images were taken in France. Maybe i can find some more in my archive. When i do i’ll show them here.