The way a photograph is printed is an integral part of the creative process because it is through the print, as well as the way the subject is organized on the negative, that the photographer communicates ideas and feelings. The print translates a complex and fascinating three-dimensional world of varied tonality into two dimensions of the final print. It is in the printing that the photographer moves from myth to reality, creating something that never existed before outside of the photographer's imagination.
This month's IN FOCUS article features Gerald Pisarzowski and his thoughts about returning to the same place over and over again. The casual photographer occasionally has one or two outstanding images among the hundreds he takes. Good pictures by such photographers are luck. What makes expressive photographs by a talented photographer is work, hard work: returning to a locale in different conditions, observing the different lighting. Most importantly, there is a difference in the photographer each time. As we see in Gerald's prints, their excellence is more than luck, more than just random snaps. They are expressions of awareness of self and of place.
This month we have a group show opening in Portland, Oregon, and another will open next month in Phoenix. Be sure to see the Members' Current and Future Shows section below for all the details.
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Contact Printers Guild Online Store
 Contact prints are universally valued for their remarkable qualities of optical sharpness, fine detail, and sensual textures. Contact printing has evolved to a forceful aesthetic today, one of purity and perfection that is actively practiced by Guild members. The decision to make hand-made contact prints reflects a method of working that necessitates contemplation. It is a time-consuming process that records each detail in the print quality to achieve the unsurpassed graphic and textural form present in each print.
At left you see Robert Finley's hand-crafted 8x10 platinum/palladium contact print entitled "Lantern Tree." 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 Gallery, you can return it for a refund. We currently have nearly 400 photographs available for sale. Just click on the link below to quickly and easily view our catalog. The Gallery is a secure site that allows you to purchase using your credit card or PayPal account.
Click here to visit our Store.
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| IN FOCUS with Gerald Pisarzowski
 I made this image at Scott's Falls, a place that I visit often throughout the year and that rarely (if ever) disappoints me. On this particular day, the light was very soft and beautiful. What first attracted me was the shape of the ice forms and how they seemed to float above the rocks. The image wasn't particularly large and was easy to miss. I positioned the camera to take advantage of the diagonal form to add some tension to the image and to exploit the near-far relationships that were taking place. How film would capture the motion of the water was the mystery. I made one exposure and hoped that it would capture my vision.
These days I work primarily with an 8x10 view camera and make hand-coated platinum/palladium prints, which best achieve the "feeling" that I'm trying to express in my work. The mystery for me is the interplay of light and water and the intrigue of not knowing how it will look until the negative is developed and the print is made. My intention is to make interesting prints, ones that will garner a second look and maybe a hmmmmmm! I try to remove a sense of scale from my images and often visually explore rather ordinary scenes, imbuing them with a sense of the extraordinary. Some things are mundane only because we choose to see them that way.
Stephen Leacock once admitted that he was very lucky, but then observed that the harder he worked, the luckier he got. When you spend a lot of time honing your technical and visual skills, you're more likely to be ready for those moments when everything seems to (pardon the pun) click! It's a matter of being there at the right moment and knowing when that moment will occur. The camera is loaded and focused, and everything seems to come together - the image just feels right. I find if I make repeated visits to a favorite photography setting in different lighting and weather conditions, images like this one seem to unfold before me. Successful images almost demand to be taken, but these successes are not easy and luck has little to do with it.
I'm drawn to these favorite places, and much of the time, I'm not sure if I'm taking my camera or is it taking me. I go because I like being there, being in touch with nature, clearing the clutter from my mind, focusing on things I like to deal with and things I like to look at. And if I'm succesful, I make a wonderful image that expresses that feeling and those thoughts and resonates the same in others.
To see this and more of Gerald's work, please click here to visit the Guild's Online Gallery.
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| Photographers' Outings
Ray Bidegain Talks about Cropping
 "While photographing in the field, I am contemplative and intentional. In the field, I look at my ground glass and make sure that all of the elements that make up my composition are accounted for and necessary to my final print. As I pre-visualize my heart out, the print looms in the back of my mind, full frame and filled with pure beauty.
"Cropping is not part of my plans at this point. But the truth is, not all of my negatives produce prints that possess the feelings I had in the field. Sometimes I see elements that I was attracted to in the first place, but the overall image is not working. For a long time I would relegate these photographs to the trash and move on to making more images. Then, one day while I was looking at a few of these photographs, I picked up a matte board with a 5x7-size window cut in the center. I noticed that sometimes the shapes and forms that drew me to make the exposure in the field were present in the image. The problem was that the image also included other elements that were not working.
"When you are a platinum printer making contact prints, cropping is not for the faint of heart. This is different from doing enlarging, where you simply raise the head of the enlarger and make a print using part of the negative. Cropping a contact print means laying your original negative down on the paper cutter and cutting it to the new size. That idea is a tough one to get your mind around. I also found this difficult at first because I wanted to make those decisions in the field correctly, the first time. This seemed to be "cheating" the pure photography I like to think I am doing. I finally came to accept that cropping is just another way I can make my photographs realize the feelings I want them to resonate."
Ray's image above, entitled "Cherry Orchard," is an illustration of this concept. To see this and more of his work in our Online Gallery, please click here.
Matthew Magruder and Nocturnal Urban Landscapes
 "Lots of people make nighttime imagery; it's a fairly common occurrence. You see it throughout the world of photography: wonderfully rich and colorful images, alive with that glow and vibrancy that comes only from photographing the orange, yellow, or blue of street lamps.
"As a contact printer working in platinum, I've tried my fair share of nocturnal capturing. My first attempts at this endeavor were exceptionally time consuming. My 'normal' procedure, typical for large-format or ultra-large-format photographers, involved shooting at especially small aperture settings to facilitate sharpness through the entire image. This translates into exposures of nearly an hour, sometimes more on a particular image. I created several negatives and was even pleased with one or two of them.
"Then something rather serendipitous occurred. I was loaned a large vintage Kodak soft-focus portrait lens, made circa the 1940s. By mounting this dinner-plate-sized lens on my 12x20 camera, I could shoot images with very shallow depth of field and a thin area of sharp focus, but now they would require only minimal exposure times (in the range of four to 12 seconds). It was--and is--quite a departure from my normal subject matter and capturing methods.
"This process has had an extremely rejuvenating and invigorating effect on my work. These images and scenes have revealed a whole new world to be seen and discovered, a world filled with softness, visual brilliance, and beauty usually invisible in the modern urban environment. If I were to visit the same scenes during the daylight hours, they would hold no photographic interest. However, when seen illuminated by artificial street lamps, overpass lights, and traffic signals, the urban landscape takes on a beauty and interest that is new and fresh for my photographic vision."
To see more of Matt's work, please visit the Guild's Online Gallery.
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Special Offers
 Be sure to check out the changing gallery of specially priced prints offered by Guild members through this newsletter. Using this link, you can buy selected photographs that we have discounted for a limited time.
We are featuring Sandy King's 5x7 limited-edition carbon transfer print entitled "Spanish Alcornoque," one of several prints available in our Special Offers section this month. Some of the prints are also featured in the current B&W Magazine advertisement. Please visit this issue's special-offer prints on our website.
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Members' Current & Upcoming Shows & Events
Guild Group Show in Portland, OR
 We hope to see many of you in Portland at the Guild's group show opening this month. On October 20, we will be hosting an Artists' Reception from 2 to 4 PM. The gallery is located in the lower level of Peterson Hall at 2255 NW Northrup, in Portland's chic Northwest neighborhood.
The exhibit runs from October 20 through November 23. Normal open hours are Monday through Friday, 9 am to 5 pm, and Saturday 1-5 pm. However, the gallery is often open evenings and other unscheduled times, so please check on access or get directions by calling 503.245.1784.
Above is Patrick Kolb's 5x7 platinum/palladium print entitled "Hug Point Stream." This limited-edition contact print will be part of the upcoming show and is also available in our Online Gallery.
Guild Group Show in Phoenix, AZ
 Our final group exhibition this year, at 422 Gallery in Phoenix, opens November 16th and runs through the middle of next January. At right is "Globe, Arizona 2007," one of Scott Peters' images to be featured in this show.
The venue is located at 4115 North 44th Street in Phoenix and can be reached by phone at 602-957-3122. To visit their website, please click here.
John Wimberley
The Paul Paletti Gallery is exhibiting John's work through November. The gallery is located at 713 E Market St., Suite 100, in Louisville, Kentucky. Please call 502.589.9254 for hours and directions.
To see the images John has available through the Guild's Online Gallery, please click here.
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| Members' Workshops
All workshops scheduled by Guild members for 2007 are currently in progress or are completed. Please check this section in upcoming newsletters for more classes as they are scheduled.
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New Members
The Contact Printers Guild is always interested is seeing work from contact printers throughout the world. We have set up some guidelines for submission of work and consideration for becoming a Guild member. If you are interested, please click here to see the details.
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