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10/16/2003 Entry: "platinum lust"

Yesterday's stop at the opening of a new show at Angelfall Studios may have been a very dangerous step. My main motivation was to see the large format works of Nathan Congdon. I'd seen some of his work online and heard his name used with respect on several LF message boards but had never seen an actual print, live and up close.

Dangerous.
Very dangerous.

The series showing was portraits of women in sort of fantasy settings. Nothing entirely strange or twisted, not at all, but quite interesting. I fell in love with several of them. Hell, I fell in love with most of them. The ideas for the photos, the composition, the technique... all left me standing in the middle of the gallery with my mouth open.

I said they were dangerous. It's bad enough that they all showed the crystal clarity of detail possible only with a big negative, and since these were shot with a 12x20 camera the detail was incredible. The dangerous part was the printing technique, platinum/palladium, an exquisite process yielding the most delicate tonal scale in a warm creamy softness.

Why so dangerous? I've thought once or twice about trying platinum printing but been scared off by the price tag. Even a simple starter kit, enough to make perhaps a dozen 8x10 prints, is going to run close to $150.00. Figure sacrificing a few of the sheets to test strips, losing a few to goofs, and your looking at some high dollar works.

But, oh God, they were beautiful.