12x12" Inkjet Print Versions of
The Early Studies Photographs
1994-2000 silver gelatin prints (3.5" square)
~ A 2024 Inkjet Print PROJECT ~
Introduction
I will briefly say here, in case you haven't seen the introductory text for the first Book of the 12x12" Studies projects, that the idea for this 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT -- and all the other 12x12" inkjet projects--(Click here to see an updated list of all the completed 2023-24 inkjet print projects)--originated from the two earliest Studies projects, both dated 1994-2000.
The six-year project consisted of miniature silver gelatin prints, 3.5" square in size; images often discovered hidden within my 30-year-old archive of early black and white negatives dating back to the mid 1960's. Those early Studies photographs were often cropped versions of the negatives. That six-year project was liberating to me, and influenced how I would see photographically, later, when I began photographing for the later Studies Projects, including of course the 12x12" inkjet print projects.
The early 1994-2000 Studies projects were highly influenced by my love of different kinds of brief piano compositions, including the solo piano jazz performances of Thelonious Monk, JS Bach's Well Tempered Clavier, and many recordings of contemporary piano music. Other important influences include my love for the square snapshots I saw as a child. When I was nearly ten years old I experienced an Epiphany (something like a visionary experience involving snapshots) that directed me to my life's work in photography. (click here and go to to Story #5, "Epiphany of the Snapshots" to read about that experience.)
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The black and white 12x12" inkjet prints represented in the blog images displayed here, were made from digital files I created by scanning the original 3.5" silver gelatin prints, or the negatives from which the miniature prints were made, using a flatbed scanner. Some of those early scans were designed to reproduce the image in its original 3.5" square format; later, I made much larger file size scans so that I could make larger inkjet prints if I so desired. The Studies images you will see below in this blog version of the 12x12" inkjet print project are anywhere from 3.5" to 4.5" or 6" square in size (presented within a 12x12" tonal matte).
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At the end of the Pandemic I felt it would beimportant to archive--in inkjet printed form--at least some of my most favorite images from my 60 + year history of making photographs, including some of the earliest 3.5" silver gelatin print Studies images which numbered around 1,000. I have not include in this project images from my Garage Series photographs, dated 1999-2001, although in the beginning I did make silver gelatin prints 3.5" square of the garage series, thinking they would be part of my Studies project. Later, in 2016, I made 18x18" in size inkjet print versions (from large file scans of my 35 mm negatives) of my most favorite Garage photographs. I suspended the garage images in lots of black space. (Visit my Garage Series project.)
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Many of the images I have chosen to present in this project are in homage to the "quirky" music I still love today as composed and performed on solo piano by Theolonius Monk. I have also included a few "formal studies" and "thing photographs" and several radically transformed versions of some of my early people photographs from the 1960's.
Most importantly, to me, I have in most cases presented images which function for me as a True, living symbols--photographic images which conjoin corresponding images from the inner and outer worlds; images which, with grace, unveil, if ever so subtly, a hidden reality, a felt transcendent presence of the sacred. Symbols are images which give form to Unitary Reality, what I like to refer to as the Oneness of Being. This something I have felt from the time I was a very young photographer and just beginning to study photographers like Alfred Stieglitz, Minor White, Edward Weston, Paul Caponigro and others who had the courage to speak openly about their feelings, ideas and intentions.
I invite you to visit the links below which speak more thoroughly about these matters:
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I have numbered and provided mostly descriptive titles for each of the photographs, and in certain cases I have added some brief commentary on the image and/or links to related blog projects and images. I have also added an Epilogue to the project which illustrates how I used the 3.5" silver prints in various forms of presentation.
In you are viewing this blog project with a desktop or laptop computer, I encourage you to click twice on the image which will place the photograph in an alternative viewing mode which, in my opinion, is far superior to the blog's default viewing mode. (click here for a more technical explanation regarding viewing my blog publishes photographs).
~ March 2024 ~
12x12" Inkjet Print Versions of
The Early Studies Photographs
The 1994-2000 silver gelatin prints (3.5" square)
~ A 2024 Inkjet Print PROJECT ~
Image #1 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Foot print on a metal door with a reflection of a shadow
Image #2 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Man's hand against a soaped store window & shadow
Image #3 Early Studies 12x12" : Light bulb & pull chain in a dark hallway leading to a basement
Image #4 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Pillow in shadow & two stones (one on shadow's edge)
Image #5 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Man suspended / entangled
Image #6 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Illuminated figure in front of horse & ridder wallpaper
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Image #7 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Boy in striped shirt stepping over a wood barrier
Image #8 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Young girl, springtime, drying her hair over a chair
Image #9 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Tree shadows on garage door & lines, dots, cracks
This image, and the next one below, represent a kind of minimalist tendency
in these early Studies. The small scale of the prints insisted that I
create images that did not depend on lots of detail, but rather
simple bold structures of tone, light and shapes. This is
I think apparent in most of the images in this project.
Image #10 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Wire form, hole in wall & glowing light from below
Image #11 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Letter in a puddle & a long shadow crossing over it
Image #12 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Paper bird soaring toward the light & arrow arrow sign
Image #13 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Old Man (out of focus) standing in sunlight
Image #14 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Upside-down stairs
Image #15 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT White outlined hooded figure, line & shadow
This image, and the next two images, were made using paper masks
to hold back the light exposure to the printing paper which
created a drawing-like line around the white shape
of the figures.
Image #16 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Man's shadow, white outlined woman, and her shadow
Image #17 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Woman in a hat, a white outlined figure & its shadow
Image #18 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Young girl with sweater over her head
Image #19 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT "Woman in a hat, ear ring, black vertical bar
This image was on the very left edge of my 35mm negative. (See image 17 above.)
I use images repeatedly in various contexts, often transformed in numerous
ways. I love re-visioning photographs over and over again when possible.
Image #20 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Two kids wrestling in snow
Image #21 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Little girl on a golf green, cup of ice cream, a line
It was the Forth of July at a Milwaukee Park when I took this photograph,
and, I don't know why, but I added the line in the photograph, digitally.
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Image #22 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Sliding stone & shadow
I have made many, many photographs of stones. This image has a
quality of joy and enthusiasm in the way that the stone appears
to be sliding to a silent standstill, locked into a posture of
stillness and closeness with its own shadow.
Image #23 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT White wall, truck Shadow, metal wheels
Image #24 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Two wheels from a toy car
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Image #25 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Man with triangular frame in a construction site
This image reminds me of an experience I had in Brooklyn, 1969
just weeks before Gloria and I were to be married. See
Story #15 in my blog project Death, Art, Writing.
Image #27 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Bather in the Wisconsin River
This image, which is included in my Family Life project, was made several weeks after I had a
"near-death" experience in the Wisconsin River. When I photographed a friend bathing in
that same River I knew it was about the heart opening experience I had earlier.
To read about that experience in detail, read story #18 in my collection of
stories published in my blog essay: Death, Art, Writing.
Image #28 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Figure (out of focus) at the end of a rope
(Note this image and the next thee images below are from my two blog projects:
Many of the images are multiple-exposures, and many have been solarized during
the silver-gelatin printing process. A flash off-the-camera was used in most of the images.
The above image is in a way about death, as is all the Persephone series photographs.
Image #30 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Woman in a winter overcoat and her windblown scarf
My early Studies project photographs (1994-2000) were like "found photographs" in the sense
that I would look at my own old negatives (this one is from the mid 1960s) and then print
just a small part of the image I wanted from the negative and cut out the rest. I find
this image quite haunting in all its variations. It is one of those images I keep
revising and reusing in different contexts . . . perhaps because the image
reminds me of my mother who had such a difficult life and sacrificed
so much for me after my dad died when I was ten.
She saved some of her social security money from my dad's death so that I could go to college
and study photography at RIT for my freshman year. I worked my way though the five years of my
undergraduate study, part for which included study in Chicago. ~ I like the glint of light on
the scarf which the wind reveals to be like a transparent veil.
Image #31 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT "The gray cloud" (Negative silver print)
This image is from my Negative print series. I titled the image after a piano
composition by Franz Liszt, "Nuages Gris" (Gray Clouds)
Image #32 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Man shooting hoops at a community playground
The collapsed picnic table represents (for me) the demise of what was once (for me)
a very close friendship . . . a friendship that should have ended sooner than it did.
It's possible all of my photographs are simultaneously self-portraits . . .
portraits of my individual (ego) self. Images which function for me
as True, living Symbols are subtle revelations of the Supreme Self.
Image #33 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Looking up at a rubber tire on top of a basketball hoop
Image #34 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT A Man wearing ear protectors working on a brick wall
Image #35 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Nocturne : Frozen Window & Venetian Blind, Flash of Light
Image #36 Early Studies PROJECT Gloria, hand on neck & a luminous gray tree
See my Thing Photographs
Image #37 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT : Headless boy, Florescent Light, Man with book
Image #38 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT : Figure walking in a snow storm
Image #39 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT : Tree, snow, small figures in the background
Image #40 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT : Two dogs, two people, playing on a sand dune
Image #41 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT : Woman with birds (out of focus)
Image #43 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT : Potted plant with flowers (behind a window shade)
Image #44 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT : Miniature Pony reflected in a puddle
Image #45 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT : Dog lying on its side suspended in white space
Image #47 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT Gloria standing (cold) in car light next to a paper bag
Image #48 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT : Dark Hanging Leaf seen against a sunlit cloud
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Image #49 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT : Crowd of people looking into a flash of unbearable light
I took this picture, and the one below, around 1964-65, when I was a student of photography
at RIT. I was very worried about an atomic war at that time. Later, as a graduate student
at the University of New Mexico (1969-72) I solarized the silver print above;
then, sometime after 2003 I scanned both of the images and made some
additional digital adjustments to each if them, including in these two
versions, the silvery gray matts surrounding the images which gives
the intense light in each image a more visible presence. I later
identified these images as Faint Photographs.
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Image #50 Early Studies 12x12" PROJECT : Waving Goodbye (Faint photograph)
This Faint Photograph is for me a metaphor for The Departing Landscape. Most
things--including human beings and photographs--fade when they become
over- exposed to the light of the sun. Thus I conclude this 2024 12x12"
Inkjet Print PROJECT of Early (1994-2000) Studies Photographs.
~ Epilogue ~
"Something Larger"
Between 1994-2000 I wrote often about how the miniature Studies photographs were inspired by music, and that the little pictures were entitled Studies because I enjoyed thinking of the little pictures as "preparation for something larger." I didn't know then what that "something larger" might look like until after I completed the Garage Series in 2001 and began placing the miniature garage photographs in sets of five behind one matte with five windows. (see the first illustration below). This presentation of the images was for me an attempt to visually replicate my experience of walking up and down a Milwaukee alley with garages (on either side of me) which changed in character from one garage to the next.
The "quintets" then gradually led me to the idea of making "vertical quartets" and "triadic visual poems" with my miniature 3.5" square silver gelatin Studies prints. My project Triadic Memories, inspired by the music of Morton Feldman helped me to move in this direction of image presentation. I had several exhibitions of my miniature Studies photographs in the form of single framed prints, triads and vertical quartets, both of in installed constellations, I thought as Visual Poems, poems of open ended meanings that transcended obvious narratives.
The visual poems and the garage sets then grew larger in scale in 2016 when I scanned the negatives (or in some cases the miniature prints themselves) so that I could create inkjet prints at a much larger scale than the original miniature silver gelatin prints.
The largest incarnation of the Studies images I can remember (now) included several gallery installations of the miniature studies prints framed in 10x10" frames. I also created some Symmetrical Studies photographs. And finally, of course, the most recent incarnation has been the 12x12" inkjet print versions of the Studies images with the 12x12" tonal matts surrounding the smaller 4"-to-6" sized images.
Garage Quintet (3.5" silver gelatin prints behind one matte with five windows)
Triadic Visual Poem (Three 3.5" silver gelatin prints behind one matte with three windows)
Triadic Visual Poem (Three 3.5" silver gelatin prints behind one matte with three windows)
Vertical Quartet (Four 3.5" silver gelatin prints behind one matte with four windows)
Gallery installation of framed visual poems (3.5" silver prints, triads and vertical quartets)
Digital Garage Triad
Digital Garage Triad
Digital Triadic Poem
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Digital Triadic Poem
Digital Triadic Poem
Gallery installation of a line of miniature 3.5" Studies prints behind window mattes in 10" frames
Gallery installation of miniature 3.5" Studies prints behind window mattes in 10" frames
Another wall installation from the same Gallery exhibit as above
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This project was announced on
my bog's Welcome Page
March 22, 2024
Related Blog Project Links
How to Best View My Online Blog Images with your desktop or laptop computer.
Please visit the Welcome Page to my blog The Departing Landscape. It includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating from the most recent to those dating back to the 1960's. You will also find on the Welcome Page my resume, contact information . . . and much more.
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