How I shoot

I use transparency (a.k.a. slide) film. My films of choice are Fujichrome Velvia RVP 100 and Astia 100F. Velvia is particularly well-suited for landscape photography, capturing rich and highly saturated colors. It is also the sharpest of all films. On the negative side, it's a very "contrasty" film, requiring much exposure care. I am convinced that shooting "digital" is the way of the future, but at the present time I find that it doesn't have enough information to print X-Large and XX-Large sizes. It's simply a matter of time, however, for the technology to catch up with medium and large format film.

Cameras I use

Most of my work is done with so-called "medium format" cameras. I use primarily a couple of Fuji rangefinder cameras. Here is a pix showing the two cameras I use for 90% of my photography. I like to call them "my workhorses". A number of my images were shot with a Mamiya 645 system; although technically excellent, this system didn't fit my style of photography and was difficult to carry on backpacking trips.

The transparencies are 2-1/4" by 1-3/4", which is about 3 times as large as the 35mm format. Here is an image of a few 2-1/4" transparencies on the light box, with a 35mm slide in the center for comparison.

Medium format is not quite as large as "large format". Large format allows for huge enlargements, but takes considerably more preparation to shoot and doesn't match my personality and style of photography. Medium Format allows me to be more productive and to create very sharp paper prints up to 24"x30" and canvas up to 44"x60".

For extreme wide-angle (17mm) and telephoto (500mm) photography, I use a 35mm Olympus OM-4 system. The cover of my book Photographing the Southwest - Volume 1 was shot with a 500mm Olympus lens.

Processing the film

A local pro lab processes my film, which comes back in the form of long strips of uncut color transparencies. I then evaluate the transparencies with a high quality Schneider loupe on a daylight-corrected light box and select the "keepers" which I intend to print.

From the transparency, one can enlarge directly on paper in a darkroom and then process the paper in chemicals. This is the traditional method, which I have used for many years. I have had my own black and white darkroom since I was a teenager, developping my film and enlarging my own B&W prints. When I lived in Japan many years ago, I had my own color darkroom and created my own prints. I was an original adopter of Ilfochrome (formerly Cibachrome), a pioneering process at the time. I've really paid my dues to the "wet" lab, but I have now switched entirely to the so-called "digital darkroom".

Scanning

Instead of printing in a dark chamber using an enlarger and processing the print in chemicals, I send my precious transparencies to a professional lab in Denver, Colorado. They send me back large high-quality drum scans of each transparency. Although I have my own scanner if I need to do a rush job, the drum scans offer much better detail and sharpness and are the only ones I use in production.

I receive the scans on CDs or DVDs and open them on the computer in Adobe Photoshop, where I make the same kind of corrections I would in the traditional darkroom (dodging and burning, contrast masking, etc.) as well as some that are specific to the digital process (dust removal and sharpening).

Printing

... and then I print on my wide-format "giclée" printer, which uses 7 different kinds of inks (black, grey, cyan, yellow, magenta, light cyan and light magenta).

Unlike consumer printers which use dyes, my printer uses complex pigmented inks, which will last a lifetime without fading. The 100% cotton canvas comes in rolls 24" or 44" wide. For paper prints I use 24" wide Epson Enhanced Matte paper.

Stretching & Varnishing

After the canvas has "cured", I stretch it myself on dense Canadian linden wood stretcher bars (aluminum-reinforced stretcher bars in the case of the XXL size). After the canvas is stretched, I coat it using a HVLP gun, spraying two layers of a satin varnish to protect it from scratches and UVs. The varnish also gives it a beautiful "painterly" sheen and enhances the vivid colors and sharp details.

Even more details

Photos on Canvas are often referred to as "Giclées". The word Giclée, pronounced "Gee-Clay" is derived from the French and means "to squirt", in our case to squirt ink. The gyclée process was originally developed in 1989 as a digital alternative to lithographic reproduction. The Giclée Print Process today, has far surpassed the dpi (dots per inch) resolution of traditional lithographs and is now the world's preferred standard for fine art print reproductions. A canvas print, or Gyclée, is an individually produced, high-resolution print made using a new sophisticated wide format inkjet printer technology. A state-of-the-art digital printer (an Epson 9600 in my case) sprays millions of drops of ink per square inch onto specially treated canvas or paper, producing a large archival quality image with brilliant velvety colors, crisp contrasts and razor-sharp details.

One of the main advantages of prints on canvas is that there is no need for frames. My prints on canvas are cut to size and stretched over 0.75" or 1-1/2" stretcher bars, depending on the size. The edge of the photographic canvases have a unique artistic appearance as the image continues to fold around the sides to the back in a so-called "gallery wrap" or "museum wrap". There is no need for frames or glass. They are beautiful plain and ready to hang up on a wall just as they are. If you prefer a frame, I suggest using a so-called "canvas floater frame" to provide some space (about 0.5") between the canvas and the frame.

Another advantage of my prints on canvas is that they are very low maintenance. Thanks to the varnish coating, they can be easily cleaned with a damp cloth or sponge and they'll keep their brilliant color for decades.