“I came to photography from painting. I had a reasonable proficiency with technique, but realized I was having trouble seeing strongly. Photography posed a good way to grapple with that: I was going back to graduate school and it seemed a better use of my limited time.

“I was using a 4x5 camera and, in a fit of chiding myself to be more organized, I was making contact sheets for my files one day. I realized that the contact prints looked exceptionally good. I tried making enlargements of matching excellence and found it impossible to do so. The enlargements were good, but the contact prints had a quality that was just hard to match – and it was a quality that I wanted in my work. Shortly thereafter I started using an 8x10 camera exclusively. I stumbled across Michael Smith’s writings and the story of Azo contact printing paper. The tests I ran convinced me that Azo was something special. That rounded out the materials-and-technique end of things. Now I use an 8x10 camera and sometimes use widgets such as reducing backs to make 5x7 and 4x10 photographs. I develop my film in pyrogallol and make silver chloride contact prints developed in amidol.

“I’d enjoyed coming to grips with the photography of past masters, but was always particularly drawn to Edward Weston’s images, especially the way his work evolved over his lifetime. Getting to know Michael Smith and Paula Chamlee was important to me as well. Their straightforward technique and seeing, and the meeting of two people with their talents, was a big help in clarifying things for me. Photography provides a way for me to experience certain moments that I feel but cannot articulate.

“I’m somewhat agnostic about subject matter, although I do enjoy spending time in wild places. Ideas of rhythm and spacing are as important to me as ideas of figure and ground, so I guess my interests are very much modernist in scope. Much of my work has been done close to home, although on occasion, and with increasing frequency, I make trips to places farther afield.”

To see DJ's images in the Guild Store, please click here.

Here you see Ray Bidegain’s platinum print entitled “Tulips,” just one of our gallery of fine prints available in our Store.

Because we understand the difficulty of seeing the true beauty of a contact print from a scanned image on your computer, we offer an unconditional guarantee. If you are not satisfied with any photograph you have purchased from the online store, you can return it for a refund. We currently have close to 300 photographs available for your inspection. Just click here to quickly and easily view our catalog. The store is a secure site that allows you to purchase using your credit card or PayPal account.

Susan Huber

As announced in a past newsletter, Guild member Susan Huber was chosen for a photo project on rural churches of the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. Following is a narrative on her experiences with this venture.

“Winning a 2006 Travel Project Assistance Grant from the British Columbia Council of Arts gave me a wonderful opportunity to document rural churches in B.C. and its neighboring province Alberta. Working with architecture was a departure from landscape for me. Covering 9,000 kms during 2005 and 2006 made me admire these humble churches representing local communities of Russian, Ukrainian, Greek, Romanian and Aboriginal settlements. My travels took me from the extreme south of Alberta to near the North West Territories, and gave me an appreciation for the many styles of churches and their often-strategic location in the surrounding landscapes. Entering these churches transported me to another world, they so contrasted with their humble exteriors.

“Many communities' lives are intertwined with their churches. Some churches have a photographic history in the communal halls. I was able to visit a few of these when parishioners were on the nearby grounds performing maintenance. Even at abandoned churches, the grounds were immaculate. Many of the caretakers gave me oral histories and related current preservation efforts underway to maintain the importance of their churches.

“I was fortunate to have seen the excellent book In Plain View by Orest Semchishen, published by the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography. The book's images stayed with me a long while; and on my annual journeys to the Prairies, I began to photograph other structures unrelated to those typical of the Badlands. In 2004, I made an appointment to meet Orest Semchishen in Edmonton. Orest’s interest initially began while growing up near some of these churches and attending services. He was also able to visit many of them while working as a traveling radiologist. He was gracious in sharing his notes, giving me denominations of churches along with driving instructions to many of the most remote.

“Using Orest's notes and detailed range road (RR) and township (TWP) maps for the local regions, designed for the agricultural landholds, was the most helpful means of finding churches and cemeteries. I used some county maps, but found them lacking as they were out of date. Reading these maps accurately became a very necessary art, as one can quickly become lost. Sometimes, the road dead-ended and sometimes it was impassable due to heavy rain. The roads were all gravel and dirt, and the challenge of driving many hours each night and day to find my subjects became the most frustrating part of the project. Asking for instructions was usually impossible, as most farmers were in the far-away fields. Sometimes, I was lucky in seeing a dome shining in the sun or a hedge line of non-native trees alerting me to a nearby church.

“My goal was to track some of these churches, to document the changes to the exteriors revealing juxtapositions of other structures and landscapes crowded from technological changes. Some churches were relatively unchanged, some burnt down, and some moved due to lack of funds needed to care for them. I hope to continue to portray these structures as an important part of each community and to spark further restoration efforts by petitioning for Provincial Heritage Funds to preserve these churches for present and future generations.”

For this project, Susan used a Phillips Explorer 8x 10 camera with a Schneider 240 G- Claron lens, and Ilford HP5 developed in pyro. She prints in the sun on gold-toned Printing-Out-Paper (approximately 5 by 7) and on 8x10 Azo paper.

To see more of Susan Huber’s images in the Contact Printer’s Guild store, please click here.

Matthew Magruder

Matt tells us how he came to create this arresting image: “It’s not often that I shoot 'nighttime' photography, although when I started this whole photography thing years ago, I used to spend hours upon hours outside at night with my medium- format and 35mm cameras, capturing images. Lugging a camera bag with one or two lenses and my Hasselblad and Canon camera bodies, I’d take many rolls of negatives in a given evening. I have a few binders filled with those wonderful negatives capturing 30 seconds or more of night. I honestly haven’t even thought to photograph at night since venturing into large format (8x10) and ultra large format (7x17). The exposures I make, at the tiny apertures needed for good lens coverage on the big negatives, would seem to completely negate shooting with these cameras at night. But given all this, there I was standing outside at 9 pm with my 7x17 camera on a small strip of grass along a highway right near my home.

“This scene is something I’ve driven by a number of times. I’ve lived in south Austin for a few years now, and without fail, about twice a year, this fair/carnival will stop only half a mile east of my home along Highway 290/71. I’ve always been fascinated with carnivals and the wonderful radiance they create in the evening, amplified by the motion of numerous cars whizzing by, the carnival rides, and the flickering lights.

“Honestly, I would never have thought to haul my 7x17 camera out to try to capture a night scene of something like this. In broad daylight, I’m often exposing my negatives for a good 3-8 seconds, so to imagine the length of exposure needed for a nighttime shot would seem to be overwhelming. In fact, this was quite a long exposure, a little over an hour, to be specific. It seems the photography gods blessed me, since it was quite cold on this particular night; but the breeze was barely noticeable, which limited the amount of camera shake that could occur with such a long exposure time.

“For some reason, on this particular Friday evening I felt compelled to attempt to capture this image. Perhaps I just needed time clear my head, to spend time outside, thinking. What better way to accomplish this than to hang out next to my camera for over an hour? I’m constantly looking at the world through the oblong (and sometimes awkward) format of 7x17. Even after making hundreds of negatives, it’s still difficult sometimes to capture scenes I’m happy with using this format. I think this challenge is partly why I feel so connected to this particular format/camera. It is a limitation I enjoy trying to work within, one that dares me to push its limits to encompass my view of the world and to convey that view in my images.”

Technical notes: For this photograph, Matt used a slightly modified/repaired Folmer & Schwing 7x17 Banquet camera with a 355mm Schneider G Claron lens. The negative was exposed for approximately 75 minutes at an aperture of f45. Film: Efke PL100 (also known as ADOX 100) sheet film, developed in pyrocat HD @ 1:1:100 for approximately 7+/- minutes. (Time varies, as he uses a green safelight and develops negatives by inspection.) The print is a platinum/palladium 7x17 contact print on Fabriano Artistico Extra White paper. For purchase information on “Carnival Night” in the Guild store, please click here.