We will continue to feature a different photographer each month in the IN FOCUS section. This month we have Michael A. Smith sharing his thoughts on the process of the photographer in each image. We hope this monthly feature adds to your understanding of what motivates each one of us.

As we continue to create new images, we will share different adventures from the field or studio, as the case may be, under the heading of Photographers’ Outings. We try to share our successes and failures as well. You can learn more from your failures than some of your successes. Heck, we may even ask for some advice! Although we often work alone, photography is a group sport.

Here you see DJ Nayakankuppam’s print entitled “Erosion, Point Lobos 2002,” 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 well over 300 photographs available for your inspection. Just click on the link below 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.

Click here to visit our Store.

Gerhard Bock

Viewpoint Photographic Art Center has selected Gerhard Bock’s ziatype image entitled “Laura at 6” for its 2007 alternative process exhibition, “Visual Edge: Handcrafted.” The group display will run through February 3, with an artists’ reception January 13, 5:30 to 8:30 PM. The gallery is located at 551 Sequoia Pacific Blvd in Sacramento, CA. (Ed. note: A ziatype is a unique kind of platinum print that uses different chemicals; the image is created during rather than after exposure in a developer bath.)

Patrick Kolb

On January 17, Patrick Kolb will talk about his photographs and the techniques he uses at Portland Photographers' Forum. The group's monthly meetings start at 7:00 pm at Wilson High School, 1151 SW Vermont, Portland, OR, in the Teachers' Lounge.

Paula Chamlee

The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, Austin, Texas, has scheduled an exhibit of Paula’s images from her book High Plains Farm. The show opens March 3 and runs through April 15. To visit the museum’s web site for directions or more information, please click here. For purchase information on this image and more of Paula’s work, please visit our Store.

John Wimberley

John Wimberley’s work is included in an ongoing show of nudes by the on-line gallery Soulcatcher Studio. To see his image, please click here.

Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada has scheduled an exhibit May 1-31 featuring John’s work, along with prints by Aubie Golombek and Frank Roddick. The venue will be the School of Image Arts and the theme is the incarnation of spirit in physical matter. For directions, please go to the Ryerson University website and click on the "Campus Maps" tab.

To see the prints John has available through the Guild Store, please click here.

Michael A. Smith and Paula Chamlee

Running through February 10, Michael and Paula will be part of a group exhibition entitled "On Ice" at Williams Center for the Arts, Lafayette College in Easton, PA. Click here or call (610) 330-5000 for more information.

Michael and Paula have scheduled a talk at Scottsdale Community College in Scottsdale, Arizona on January 24, 2007. If you wish to attend, contact the college at 480-423-6000 for more details.

Beginning March 7 and running through April 15, Michael and Paula will have a joint exhibition at Point Light Gallery, in Sydney, Australia. The gallery is located at 50 Reservoir Street in the Surry Hills community. To visit the gallery’s web site, please click here.

Susan Huber’s work will be part of the "Truth and Beauty" contact print exhibition at Sydney’s Point Light Gallery, with also features contact printers Linda Connor and George Tice. The show opens in February and runs through May. You’ll find a link to this gallery in the previous article about Michael and Paula’s show there.

Susan is also one of 115 artists featured in a new book entitled Alternative Photography: Art and Artists, Edition I. For more information about the book or to purchase a copy, please visit the Alternative Photography website.

Guild Group Show in Sacramento, California

The Curatorial Committee of Sacramento's Viewpoint Photographic Art Center has invited the Contact Printers Guild to exhibit our work from September 7 to October 6. The Center is located at 551 Sequoia Pacific Blvd in Sacramento. For more information about Viewpoint, please visit their web site.

Guild Group Show in Portland, Oregon

Camerawork Gallery in Portland has scheduled a group show for the Contact Printers Guild to run from October 20-November 23. The Gallery is located in the lower level of Peterson Hall at 2255 NW Northrup. Check on hours or directions by calling 503.245.1784. The date for the artists’ reception will be determined and announced later. A solo show by Guild member John Wimberley will follow the group exhibit.

My entire career has been involved with understanding and revealing the underlying connections and truths between the specific (the only thing one can photograph) and a universal condition. It is how one sees rather than what one sees that makes any photograph interesting.

As a photographer, I am responsible for every square millimeter of the picture space. Everything in the picture must relate to everything else. Everything in the picture is the subject, not any one thing.

I consider a photograph to be successful when the viewer’s eyes are compelled to navigate throughout the entire picture space. The movement of the eyes is inherently pleasurable. By compelling the viewer’s eyes to move, I am giving visual pleasure. Visual pleasure must be a very deep thing; the existence of art museums, among the largest buildings in many cities, affirms that.

Whether I photograph in the natural or the urban landscape, the challenge always is to balance the allure of the subject matter with my own visual concerns and sense of abstraction. I take deep emotional response to my subject as a given. Were I not to have a deep emotional response, I would not set up my camera.

My photographs are really records—records of the interaction between myself and the things recorded. It is my hope that the end result of this interaction—the photograph—will provide an exciting new interaction between itself and the viewer.

To see Michael’s work available in our Store, please click here.

Sauvie Island Outing with Ray Bidegain

Ray writes about making this image, “Two Trees on Sauvie Island,” one afternoon while photographing at one of his favorite places. “Sauvie Island is an area about 20 minutes from my house and I go there often to photograph. Because I have been there so many times, I find it both comforting and productive. It offers a diversity of subjects and is close enough to my home that I can get there when I have only a couple of hours to work. I do not get all that many opportunities to go out for the whole day, so when I find a few free hours and the weather is agreeable, I like to go somewhere close to home so I don’t spend all my time driving. Over the years I have made many photographs there, and several of my best images were made on this small island near Portland.

“For this particular photograph I used my Zone 6 8x10 camera and a 24” Red Dot Artar lens. I have been experimenting with several films lately, and this day I used TRI-X and processed it in ABC Pyro. The print is a hand-coated platinum print on Crane’s Weston Diploma, a paper that is new to me and that has been giving me some beautiful results.”

We would be interested in hearing from some of our readers about how they feel about working close to home and how it affects their work. Please write to us at newsletter@contactprintersguild.com and we will include your thoughts in our next newsletter.

Field Testing with Patrick Kolb and Ray Bidegain

One rainy December day, Patrick, Ray, and David Burbach, a Portland-based photographer, gathered under an old oak tree and decided to do a field test of some different lenses to find out what differences they could see in a print. It was just too wet to get out in the field to do some work. The first test compared three different long lenses, two 24-inch Red Dot Artars weighed against a Fuji 600mm. For the second test, they compared three lenses in the 240-mm area, a Nikkor-W f5.6, a Schneider G-Claron, and a 9.5-inch Dagor. All lenses were used at the same settings and Ray processed all the film in the same batch, then printed them on a silver-based paper.

After carefully comparing the two sets of prints, they concluded that the difference was so small that it wasn’t an issue in any of the prints. All the lenses tested performed admirably. One would be hard pressed to pick one as better than another. At a working aperture of f32 or smaller, all the lenses performed within acceptable image-making ability. After worrying which lens is better than another one, it was reassuring to find that it is better to be concerned about the image and not about the lens.

This test was based strictly in the field to see field results. On a sunny day, the coatings on the different lenses might have made a difference, but on this rainy day, they could see no variation. Why did they test lenses with these particular focal lengths? Because these were the lenses that all three had in their camera bags.