Size: 7.5” x 7.5” on 8.5” x 11” JonCone Studio Type 5 Paper

Signed & stamped in verso

I love expression and tonality, I love this duality within black and white photography. Its expressiveness resides in its reduction of life to a range of two opposite tones that require of each other a bit of themselves to shape that expression. Its complexity is born from this apparent simplicity.

What this allows for is nuanced abstraction and that is where artistic metaphor lives. Your brain fills in the gaps, sees connections and forms emotions about it that are completely your own. It will even, if you allow it, add a bit of your own story. And if you do that then the artist has done their job. Viewing art is a giving as much as a taking.

I wasn’t thinking these things when I photographed this, these thoughts came later, after development and I had time to sit with the print. Photography as art can be like that. It’s a rare medium where creation is spread out over several processes and across time. And when you are back in the darkroom unrolling negatives from the wash, no matter how much experience you have, you never fully know what you’re getting. That space from capture to development allows a pause, it allows a retrospection.

Location: Eastern Sierra

Technical Info: Hasselblad, Kodak T-Max 100 BW film, Zeiss 50mm, Deep Red #25, developed in Kodak X-tol 1:1.