During the 1980’s I spent a lot of time printing color prints from my slides which I exhibited and sold at various art shows. Because of job pressures and moves I stopped printing for a few years until my wife Judy and I moved to Truckee, and now Reno, where I was able to build a studio and darkroom. I am a recent convert to black and white photography and I have fallen in love with this older art form. I find it hard to express why I like working with black and white so much but I do feel I am doing a better job of expressing my love of the natural scene in this medium. I am fortunate that I am still able to backpack forty to fifty days a year, which takes me into some of the most beautiful parts of the Sierra Nevada. Many of my photographs also reflect my attempts to record artifacts that reflect the passage of a way of life. Change is occurring so fast in all of our lives I think we sometimes need to pause and look at what we are losing in our daily lives.
These prints are traditional silver gelatin photographs, printed individually from the original negatives. I feel that the real power of a photograph lies in its “believability” so I don’t use any computer manipulation in preparing the prints. I finish each photograph by toning it in dilute selenium toner. This enriches the black tones and combines with the silver, making the prints more archival by stabilizing the silver. The prints are mounted on acid free museum grade rag matboard, which is also used for the window mats. The date by the signature records the month and year the photograph was taken.
