To see my work, hover your mouse cursor over “GALLERY” above, and select from the drop-down list. Return here for explanations of pricing, etc.

ATTN: Art dealers. I will be happy to discuss the purchase of my work for resale in your gallery. Please email me for details and pricing. I do not consign my work. I do not provide art galleries with free inventory and I am still waiting for the galleries to whom I did consign work, decades ago, to either return that work, or pay for it.  

Size, pricing, materials, etc.

Materials & Inks

I make standard prints and specialty prints. Standard prints are made on watercolor or printmaking paper using Epson Professional printers with either Epson’s own carbon and pigment inks or a special blend I devised, utilizing five pure carbon inks plus magenta and yellow inks from Hewlett Packard. I use separate printers for these ink sets. I am slowly transitioning to using my own ink set with all standard prints. All images are delivered with information as to the particular paper and ink set employed.

Specialty prints are photogravures (see the photogravure page) printed on printmaking papers or Japanese tissue. (Other papers may be used from time to time and will be noted in each case.) There are also likely to be some silver prints made on hand-coated watercolor or printmaking paper. I am in the late experimental stages with these materials, therefore no prints are offered for sale at this time, but should be shortly. These will also be noted. Specialty prints will also be available in sizes other than 13X or 17X.

All of my images range from quite permanent (Epson’s proprietary ink set and the hand-coated silver-based paper mentioned above) to absurdly permanent (my carbon and HP ink set, and of course photogravures which are the most permanent photographs known.) Nonetheless, all photographs made by any means whatsoever, should not be displayed where they receive direct sunlight. The gods of photography must not be taunted.

Size

Photograph sizes are traditionally expressed in terms of the size of the paper on which the image is printed, not the size of the image itself. An 8×10 print for example, would be made on an 8″x10″ piece of photographic paper, the image somewhat smaller, say about 5″x7″.

I use watercolor and printmaking papers exclusively, now. They come in sheets 22″x30″ from which I cut smaller sizes. A few years ago I used inkjet-coated cotton rag papers that came in standard sizes of 11×14, 11×17, 13×19 and 17×22. I listed print sizes by just using the short dimension of those papers. A 13X was made on 13″x19″ paper, etc.

I now make standard prints (i.e., not photogravure or hand-coated paper images) only in 13X and 17X sizes, which result in actual image sizes of roughly 11″x16.5″ and 14.5″x22″, respectively. (I will make smaller sizes of some images on request, but no longer make them in anticipation. Larger sizes are not possible at this time.)

Because I can now cut the size paper I need from larger sheets, I tend to fudge a bit and a 13X print will actually be made on 15″x22″ paper, and the 17X on 17″x24″ paper. I continue to label print sizes the same as the standard packaged paper sizes, to avoid confusion. A print made on 15×22 paper is still called a 13X. The bigger sheets also allow a slightly larger image than would otherwise be possible and gives me more elbow room to work with.

Pricing & Purchasing

Pricing is standardized by size. But, prints that have been selling well have a small premium tacked on. This is to slow sales on that particular image. I do this instead of creating an arbitrary edition limit which is simply not compatible with how fine art photographs are made and sold. At present, only Sunrise Yucca has a premium on its price.

Photogravures and hand-coated paper prints will be priced at the next size up from their paper size. An 11X photogravure for example, will be priced like a 13X standard image. (Still early and still sorting this out. It may change.)

To purchase an image, go to the bottom of the gallery page on which you found it, type in the title of the image you want in the indicated field, select the size print and click the indicated button. If purchasing a print that has a premium added to the price (Sunrise Yucca is currently the only image with a premium), you will find a separate purchase area for that image. If you should make a mistake, you can correct it in the subsequent page, or I will correct it for you later. You will not get stuck with something you don’t want.

Matting

All the work offered for sale on this web site comes matted.

Mattes are 20″x24″ for 13X prints and 24″x30″ for 17X.

I put a lot of work into every part of what I create and the mattes I provide are precisely matched to my images. Though I will provide an un-matted print by special order, if you insist, I try hard to discourage it. The matting materials I use are the best money can buy and there is no way to ensure that, if I don’t do it myself. My mattes are 100% cotton rag museum board (Rising, Natural) and anything else detracts considerably from the image. In some cases the matte is actually a part of the image.

Another problem is that framers can purchase matte that looks the same, but isn’t. They will almost certainly buy conservation board which is a cheap substitute made of wood pulp that will eventually turn acidic. Or worse, they will buy even poorer quality materials and assure you they are very fine, indeed. There is a whole paper on this subject on the monographs page. With very few exceptions, framers do not know what they are doing and will therefore do the very worst possible for the protection of your image.

Numbering & Limiting Editions

My prints are signed and numbered, but not usually limited. Photographs are not like paintings or editioned lithographs. An image can be re-interpreted and a new interpretation made available. This is in no way a kind of clever ruse to hoodwink buyers, but a means of keeping track of variations and print numbers in circulation. When I reinterpret an image, I start numbering over again, from one. I also number each size separately. The same image can have a print #1 in both 13X and 17X sizes. A new interpretation means a new #1 in all available sizes, once again.

A new interpretation can be made because the photographer sees a whole new way of printing an image, or because materials have changed sufficiently to warrant recognition of the change. For example, Sunrise Yucca was first printed on the coated, pre-packaged, cotton rag paper I mentioned above. The switch to watercolor papers was drastic enough to justify a new interpretation and new numbering, even though the two images look very similar. More often, a new interpretation will indicate a very dissimilar looking print.

Any older image I printed originally on silver-gelatin paper will naturally be a first or second interpretation, while a more recently printed version of that image, a second or third interpretation, even if identical in appearance. There was after all, life before digital.

This interpretation and numbering system can result in a little confusion. One can easily purchase print number one of a third interpretation and mistakenly believe something that is not true. Once again using Sunrise Yucca as an example, this image has a few dozen prints in circulation, but most were variation one, made on coated paper. Current lower numbered prints are from variation two. (Each image clearly indicates which interpretation it represents and which number print of that interpretation.)

Just to confuse matters a bit more, I do occasionally make a limited edition print. But this is for those rare cases when it is justifiable by circumstance. I have a limited edition print of Storm & Farmhouse that is limited because both the paper and the inks with which I made them, no longer exist. The look is unique and unrepeatable and the price of the print reflects that. (Those prints are not currently listed on this web site.)

Discounts

I do not discount my work to anyone, ever, under any circumstances. Please do not ask. It only forces me to say no.

Artist’s Statement

The subject matter of my more recent work is the desert. That of the American Southwest. In the past I have worked in Peru, Georgia, Colorado, with even a brief stint in Arizona many years ago.

Despite my propensity to title a photograph based on where it was captured, the location doesn’t actually matter because mine are not photographs OF anything at all. People who ask me where a picture was taken have missed the point, entirely because when I have finished with an image, it seldom resembles the original subject matter. Where(?) is of no real consequence.

My photographs are tonally altered, manipulated images that result in a new reality. I don’t alter any shapes, add, subtract or remove objects from other photographs or do anything to falsify the basic truth of the image. I do alter tone and contrast. A lot. In that regard, a great deal of falsification takes place. The goal is to make a beautiful, believable image from the shapes and tones at hand, a new object that did not exist before, complete, in and of itself.

Evolution of my work

As much as gallery owners and museum curators like to label and pigeonhole artists, these things are really not possible. At least not without destroying the artist and trivializing his work. (This is how thousands of paintings showing woodland cabins at dusk with glowing windows come into being.) Artists and their work evolve. Subject matter changes, materials and technique, all improve. Vision broadens and new ideas are formulated. The old artist disappears and a new one takes his place.

I began my artist-photographer career as an Ansel Adams clone. I followed the dogma of glossy paper, sharp focus, selenium-toned, straight B&W photography, to the letter. In fact, I wrote many magazine articles about the Zone System of Ansel Adams, invented a lot of new techniques for contrast and tone control for both B&W and color photographers and generally went straight down the line of orthodoxy as it was prescribed at the time.

But during all that time I always harbored admiration for the work of those whom mainstream fine art photographers had turned into untouchables, the pictorialists. It was not so much the aesthetic choices pictorialists made: out of focus images, staged tableau, morality plays, etc. I didn’t care for that kind of nonsense then, or now. But the beauty of the physical photographic object itself always held me mesmerized. The materials and methods pictorialists were using were captivating, hauntingly alluring. Especially the photogravures made on Japanese tissues as thin as a butterfly wing, and images made on hand-coated platinum and similar papers. Nothing made by the manufacturers of silver-gelatin papers could come close to those mystical materials, not during the best days of silver-gelatin, and certainly not during the last decades when silver content was being cut back, image quality suffered greatly and manufacturers began asking with a straight face, “What differences?”

(Manufacturers of  silver-gelatin based photographic materials often changed their products whenever it pleased them to do so, then told angry photographers that they had done nothing. They would even go so far as to produce a completely new product, give it the name of an old product, then make the switch, without ever saying a word.)