I’ve written many words on these pages and elsewhere about the work of Julian Calverley — it’s a true pleasure to now be introducing you to his imminent show at Gallery 1066.

We first worked together in October 2010, which I wrote about at the time.

Since then, Julian and I have made many more prints together as his success in the world of edition printing gathers momentum.

Working with Julian is a real opportunity for us both to revel in the current capabilities of digital photographic practice. You may remember that he works with one of the finest cameras around, made by Alpa of Switzerland, which he currently uses in conjunction with the very latest in single capture technology — the Phase One IQ180.

This is an 80 megapixel digital back, which produces a 16bit single capture of around 450MB — when making many of the large prints for Julian, I often have to reduce the files produced from this camera!

Julian’s background is described at Edition Prints:

“Julian Calverley has been creating imagery in one form or another since he was old enough to hold a paint brush.

“Born in Hertfordshire in 1964, he very quickly demonstrated a love and natural talent for drawing and painting, in particular watercolour landscape work.

“After a brief and uninspiring spell at art college, Julian realised it was the mix of photography and traditional darkroom skills that would allow him to express himself most effectively.

“The next few years saw experience gained with various studios and in 1988, at 24 years old, Julian set up his first studio and darkroom.

“He now divides his time between personal and assigned work, his attentions mainly focussed on capturing landscapes in their various atmospheric conditions.”

I really enjoy how the exemplary workflow from start to finish sings through the final prints. As written on the Edition Prints Process page:

“The finished pieces command a theatrical air; so wonderfully crafted, as if each facet to the image has been summoned into place at the click of a finger.”

I don’t often get to see the prints I make in their final destination, so I can’t wait to make the journey south next week to Baldock and see the framed pieces on the wall.

The show runs from 20th April to 3rd May, full details are listed here.

In the (organised and structured) maelstrom of 2012, my studio has seen some beautiful happenings.  Now I’m enjoying a moment or two’s respite in which to begin sharing some of them with you.

Back in November 2011 (I can’t believe it was that long ago!) I wrote about my involvement with the second edition of Julian Germain’s book, ‘For Every Minute You Are Angry You Lose Sixty Seconds of Happiness’.

Well, a week or two ago, Julian kindly gave me a copy to thank me for my efforts.  A well-received thank you, too, as I simply love his work.

Anyway, I thought I’d share these photographs with you — perhaps to whet your appetite and encourage you to buy one for yourself while you still can…

In the production of the second edition, a hitherto unseen portrait was added on the final page.

I have to confess, I was so pleased with this as it enabled me to post-produce one of the photographs from start to finish — something I wasn’t able to do in the first edition, which was in production before we first met.

I feel extremely proud to have had my first major involvement in one of Julian’s fine publications.  It really is the cherry on the cake to see my name credited in the back alongside the likes of David Ellis and Michael Mack…

 

Regular visitors to this site will know that the marriage of analogue and digital photographic practice is a hot discussion at the moment.

With such topics close to my heart,  I was very pleased to be invited by the University of Northumbria to take part in a group show being held right here on Hoults Yard at Unit 44.

The photographers taking part:

Alysia Anne, David Bilbrough, Fiona Crisp, Agnieszka Kozlowska, John Lavell, Jack Lowe, Joanne Tatham & John O’Sullivan, Louise Todd and Ginny Reed.

It opens this Friday 23rd March — with the preview from 6:30pm until 9pm — and closes on 5th April.

Alongside the other photographers’ work, I’ll be showing a selection of my Platinum/Palladium prints made from Digital Negatives – if you’re in the area, do pop by…

 

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to my 100th blog post.  Two years ago, almost to the day, this blog was conceived and I hope you continue to enjoy my missives.

How fitting that this post should coincide with the completion of my largest ever project — a large print edition for the London 2012 Olympics.

Way back in December 2010, I introduced you to Rachael Clewlow’s infographics but at the time we were not in a position to divulge their true purpose and context.

As a brief reminder, I scanned two of Rachael’s acrylic artworks and reproduced them at actual size.

A year later, I was given the go ahead to make a total of 730 prints to grace the walls of the Hilton London Wembley hotel, forming part of the Olympic Village.

The trusty combination of my HP Designjet Z3200′s and Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308 won through yet again…

Most days, for five minutes or so during the late afternoon, I stand at my studio window — coffee in hand — watching the sun descend over the city.

On one of those occasions, I pondered how far the framed prints might stretch end-to-end.

Of course, with the power of Google Earth at our fingertips these days, it didn’t take long to come up with the answer:

What’s more, following a fortuitous meeting with one of the top brass at the newly conceived Sky Tyne and Wear, it also didn’t take long for the media to come knocking…

To complete my very own Olympic event, my machines would be in action for ten hours every working day for over six weeks.

Of course, once the pieces were printed, there was still work to be done.  Each print had to be trimmed to an exact size and, between me and my Rotatrim, the 4500 cuts were executed perfectly.

Wary of all the hard work that could soon be undone, I also had a custom hod constructed.  Designed to carry around one hundred prints at a time, this simple vehicle certainly earned its keep when it came to safely carrying completed work to the framer, Bruce Reid, downstairs at Unit 19.

Every now and then, Rachael would pop in to sign the latest batch of prints.

It would take her several hours to complete each session but, with the aid of multiple cups of tea, she soon got used to writing her name hundreds of times…

These prints have now left my studio and I have to say that, even though 2012 remains steadfastly relentless, there’s a part of me that misses Rachael’s work passing through my printers.

I was often asked by passers-through whether or not I tired of seeing the prints.  “Not at all!” was my consistent answer — I feel sincerely honoured to have played a small part in the London 2012 Olympics and all in the comfort of my home-from-home in Newcastle upon Tyne.

I would like to extend my deepest thanks to the artist, Rachael Clewlow, and her gallerist, Andrea Harari, for their help and enthusiasm and for bringing the London 2012 Olympics to Jack Lowe Studio.

Rachael’s exhibition, The Process, is showing at Jaggedart in London’s Devonshire Street from 19th April to 12th May.

 

Whenever I hear Chris Burden’s name, my ears prick up.

He’s an artist who, to my mind at least, never fails to be interesting through his engaging ideas and fresh angles on life.

Nearly seven years ago, Locus+ asked me to make high resolution scans of two sketches made by Chris, detailing their thoughts and intentions for the fantastic collaboration, Ghost Ship.

If you have a moment, it’s well worth taking a look at this project. As Locus+ describe:

“Commissioned to coincide with the Tall Ships Race, 2005, Ghost Ship involved the construction and development of a crewless, self-navigating sailing boat, which undertook its maiden voyage between Fair Isle, Scotland and Newcastle upon Tyne. Audiences were able to track the boat’s progress via a live, daily updated website.”

With the kind permission of Locus+, I’ve unearthed the sketches from my hard drives for you to see here:

So, back to Metropolis II…

On hearing of Burden’s latest piece, I was once again all ears and for good reason. Currently installed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, his sculpture ticks so many boxes for me on so many levels!

As the Huffington Post write:

“It’s a classic piece of German expressionist cinema reimagined as a complex piece of installation art — or the best ski-electrics set ever, depending on your perspective.

“Artist Chris Burden has built a model city based on Fritz Lang’s classic 1927 film Metropolis that features over 1000 toys cars soaring through its metallic skyscrapers at speeds of up to 230mph. Rarely has a moody dystopia and a critique of capitalism been such fun.”

Here is the piece for your delectation, all captured beautifully via the medium of the moving image…

Last night, I received a phone call from my Aurora-chasing friend, Reed Ingram Weir.

Apparently, the facts and figures were all pointing to a stellar show by The Northern Lights.

If I was to finally witness this natural phenomenon, now would be the time to jump in the car and make the sixty five mile journey north on the A1.

It would have been all too easy to settle in for the night on a Sunday evening but I was soon experiencing an intense urge to make the trip.

Aware that digital cameras can pick up early signs of the Aurora much more easily than the human eye, I quickly nipped to the top of the house to photograph the Northern sky.

The giveaway green haze hovering above the Newcastle horizon convinced me that it was time to go and meet Reed on the Holy Island causeway:

I grabbed a friend who I knew would also cherish the experience, though neither of us could ever have been prepared for the scene that greeted us.

Nearing the turn-off for Holy Island, the sky had become alive with huge columns of light, folding and weaving like waves of fabric.

Words can barely describe the emotion that overcame me — it was all I could do to keep the car on the road with such a spectacle taking place in the cold air above us.

Vast slabs of vertical green light gave the Northumberland night sky an epic cathedral-like appearance and all for a fleeting fifteen minutes or so…

As we arrived on the dark causeway, I must confess to feeling a little jittery.

The light show was beginning to fade already but it still looked sensational as it receded.  I managed to capture these images while the performance played out:

In all honesty, the intensity of green captured by my camera surprised me.  However, it seemed to match up with the photographs of others.

When watching this beautiful show, I didn’t see green, I saw a bluey-silvery-grey. I thought that reciprocity failure might have come into play, so I tried some very short exposures.

Yes, the images were very under-exposed but the green colour still prevailed.  Even the ‘quick and dirty’ capture made at ISO 3200 (the image at the top of this post) immediately showed the Aurora-green piercing through the urban haze.

It seems that more intense displays further north, in and around locations such as Tromsø, literally drench the surroundings in a glorious green light.

Thankfully, at times, we were able to see the green for ourselves during pinpricks of higher intensity.

Indeed, as we were arriving, I’ve already mentioned the great slabs of green light standing tall like huge, futuristic, architectural pillars in the sky.

So, this sparked a further spine-tingling question in my mind: When the intensity levels of the Aurora are reduced further South, why is that we observe a bluey-silvery-grey colour, yet we point a digital camera at the Aurora and the intense green prevails?

Is the camera able to render information that we cannot perceive at these lower intensities?  I’m sure there will be answers to this but I simply enjoyed pondering them while standing in that icy cold theatre.

I expect Professor Brian Cox would know the answer. If you know, feel free to enlighten us by leaving a comment in the box at the end of this post!

And so, the curtain gradually fell on the performance. The graceful, pulsing light faded away yet still lingered, maintaining a hold on us and making it very difficult to set off home.

And let’s not forget the beautiful sky to the South, so dense that Orion (often obvious at this time of year) is almost lost among its neighbours:

Some say that viewing the Aurora Borealis is life-changing.

Would I agree? Yes, without a doubt.

I haven’t been able to shake the experiences of last night from my mind, not that I’ve wanted to.

Furthermore, it’s taken me most of the day in grabbed moments here and there to attempt to put those experiences into words.

I’m still not sure that I’ve succeeded.

As I put my boys to bed this evening, I peered North from the window once more. Nothing.

The Aurora Borealis was gone for the moment but I shall never look at the sky in the same way again, day or night.

-

Keen followers of this blog and my Twitter feed will know that I am very keen on the video clip below, the Aurora Borealis and Australis as seen from the International Space Station.

It seems appropriate to sign off from this post by leaving you with this beautiful footage…

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

As is my way, I tend to keep notes to some degree on just about everything I do.  An aide-mémoire perhaps or sometimes through sheer necessity.  On other occasions, simply out of interest.

Falling into the latter category, I am happy to tell you that I met Julian Germain on 17th December 2004, nearly seven years ago.

Julian was just preparing for the launch of the first edition of his book “For Every Minute You Are Angry You Lose Sixty Seconds of Happiness”—a portrait of an elderly gentleman, Charles Snelling—and the launch of his accompanying show at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Arts.

Published by steidlMACK, this first edition has long sold out and copies now sell online for hundreds of pounds.

That’s not just a throw away statement, by the way.  I’ve just typed “Julian Germain” into eBay and there are several results. One of them is for this very book: “Buy it Now for $700″ reads the caption…

Our first meeting in 2004 was ‘after the event’ on the post-production side, so it was a great honour to work with Julian on the second edition of this beautiful publication.

I reworked old files and made some new scans too, providing fresh CMYK files and proofs in readiness for printing the second edition.

The book, now published by MACK, was launched at this year’s Paris Photo Fair. Sales were handled via the Steidl stand and I’m very pleased to report that it was their second bestseller at the fair.

“Second best? What was first?”, I hear you ask. William Eggleston’s “Chromes”, comes the reply!

You can buy the second edition of “For Every Minute…” directly through MACK for £30.

My suggestion? Grab it while you can…

I’ll make no apologies for a second successive post on matters analogue.  You appear to enjoy them and I have a further post drafted (to follow in due course) offering my thoughts on why that might be.

Not only matters analogue, of course, as this is a marriage with digital technology too!

I digress.

Last week, I spent a couple of days working with my friend and colleague, Richard Freestone, in his domain, 139 Printroom.

I first enjoyed the darkroom experience at the age of twelve when I converted my bedroom to meet my new artistic and entrepreneurial requirements.  Sadly, I haven’t revisited these analogue methods since my university days.

Under the dim tungsten glow, I had forgotten what a gentle, calm experience the darkroom can be.

Everything slows right down to a strolling pace and goes a long way to creating the huge ‘pause button’ that I reckon the Western World craves…

Until now, my part in the Alternative Printing process has been to craft perfect Digital Negatives.  So, it was sublime to make my first Platinum/Palladium print from an image I have captured, scanned, made the Digital Negative and now printed using a process invented in 1873.

As you might imagine, I made some photographs of this rather special printing process and I thought you might like to see them too…

Remember, you can learn more about this truly special service by clicking here…

My intended opening gambit on how “Autumn has arrived” seems tenuous to say the least now!

In using my Autumnal title, I had intended to then link neatly with the beautiful Platinum/Palladium leaf print we have made for Paul Kenny.

At the start of what would appear to be a wonderful Indian Summer, Autumn suddenly seems a long way away.  So, perhaps a different tack is required…

–

On 9th July 2010, I posted the news that HP had launched their Large Format Photo Negative Application.

Little did I realise the impact this would have on my working life.

A little later, around about this time last year, Richard Freestone and I embarked on what has become a phenomenal journey of research and intrigue; a journey attempting to successfully marry the old and new technologies of Alternative Printing processes with Digital Negatives.

Although not a new concept by any means, we have approached this in a very specific and new way with the help of our friends at Hewlett Packard.

Our thanks to Angel Albarran who designed The HP Large Format Photo Negative Application and helped us extensively throughout the process.

In conjunction with 139 Printroom, we are now able to make Platinum/Palladium prints from your digital files.  This is a truly exciting addition to Jack Lowe Studio and one that could open up a whole window of opportunity in your approach to photography.

You may have already noticed the new Platinum/Palladium tab towards the top of this page and it is here that you will find more information…

My eyes have been opened to a new world of possibilities.  I have gently been sifting through my own photographs and having them reworked as Platinum/Palladium prints.

Here’s an example from 1999—originally shot on 10×8 Polaroid, now scanned and made into a Digital Negative from which the print was made:

And the beautiful leaf print for Paul Kenny I mentioned?

Entitled OS 206, Paul explains the image for us:

“At the time I was obsessed with seeing leaves as maps or aerial photographs; landscape maps of the imagination.

“The OS series starts with sheet 1 at Lands End and finishes with sheet 205 at the Shetland Isles…I made my imaginary sheet 206.”

Scanned from a 6×6 negative, here is OS 206 for your viewing pleasure:

 

 

 

One day all too soon, we’ll look back at the styles that fashioned photography (both still and moving) in and around ‘The Noughties’.

It’s my guess that the phenomenon known as drop-focus, tilt and shift or perspective control will be seen as one of the main signifiers of the current era.

The Waterfall Project by Olivo Barbieri is a classic contemporary example.

Implemented well, this is an approach I happen to like; I enjoy the feel of the model village often achieved with this method of capture.

For me, at least, it tugs at the childhood heartstrings and seems to instil utopian, feel-good emotions.

So, I thought you might like to share in this particularly fine example—a French ad made to celebrate their improvements and progress on the railways over recent years:

RESEAU FERRE DE FRANCE from W & CIE on Vimeo.

If you fancy seeing big cameras strapped to the front of trains,  a bit of green screening (and your French is up to scratch), you might like to see this ‘making of’ video too…

RÉSEAU FERRÉ DE FRANCE – MAKING OF from W & CIE on Vimeo.