Silver Gelatin Prints: straight prints and collages
10.5x10.5” mounted on 16x20 light gray board
This body of work followed the Lake Series and my 1982 solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. It’s a very strange set of pictures and I’ll leave it up to you to figure out what they’re about.
The Lake Series consisted of straight photographs of Lake Michigan, and horizontal strip collages using lake imagery. The Dream Portraits consists of “straight” prints and vertical strip collages. The very first collage piece for Dream Portraits (DP1, below) is really a transition piece from the Lake Series. It includes a horizontal strip of lake imagery - the only horizontal collage in the Dream Portraits series. But the surreal spacial, tonal and various psychological dynamics of this image is well rooted in the direction this body of work would ultimately take as the project unfolded.
I invite you to see my other set of Portraits which are a subgroup of the Departing Landscape Series. Click here.
Technical note: I used paper masking techniques to get the rough edges you see around figures and objects. I would ofter cut two sets of mats: one for burning in image areas, another for blocking out certain areas of the print while I exposed the negative, and while I flashed parts of the paper with raw light. Flashing gave me the light gray tones that have no or very little original detail from the negative.
I have the complete original set of silver gelatin prints for this series, and no others. All were printed in 1982; none of the first prints were ever sold. They were exhibited only once - in a photo coop gallery setting.
DP4
Welcome Page to The Departing Landscape website which includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating back to the 1960's, my resume, contact information, and more.
