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.

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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.

An obscure beginning to a blog post, yes, and one that I feel is in keeping with the intriguing nature of my recent work with Sam Watson & Adam Phillips, Directors of CIRCA Projects.

I’ve known Sam and Adam for a while and I’m excited that we are now working together on a number of projects.

The first is the release of Two Sausages by Eric Bainbridge, a Limited Edition Print to accompany the forthcoming Video Show at CIRCA Screen.

A VHS video still, Two Sausages is perhaps one of the most lo-fi pieces I’ve made.

At first, the highly refined finishing of the Archival Pigment Print seems a curious juxtaposition with the origination of the digital file.

However, this relationship between two very different media (along with the playfulness and wit of the piece) simply adds a further level of enjoyment.

Eric Bainbridge, in conversation recently with CIRCA Projects, describes the sausage videos further:

“When I first showed them, I presented the two sausage pieces at the Gilmore Gallery in London (‘The Cavendish Group’ 1994).

“It was at a time when I had stopped making the big furry sculptures and I had just spent about 18 months messing about in the studio.

“So, the curator at the Gilmore Gallery wanted to do a show out of these diverse things that I had been creating in the studio and I wasn’t exactly sure that these things could be a show, but because I was doing some objects, some drawings, prints and various things — I thought I should have a video.

“At the time video was just becoming the mainstream, it almost felt like you couldn’t do a show unless it was a video show, so I did it as a deliberate act.

“I was interested in extending the possibility of an object.  I thought, if I make a video it would just sit on a monitor on the floor and it just became another way of presenting an object.  So that’s how it happened.  But I also like the idea that everything at the time seemed to be including video — so it was a deliberate ploy.”

Video Show runs from 21st September to 21st October with a Preview and Artist Talk on Tuesday 20th September, 6-9 pm.

The preview event will feature Eric Bainbridge in conversation with British Art Show 7 and Modern British Sculpture co-curator, Keith Wilson at 7.30pm.

I love the Autumn, it feels like the next chapter.

With the ‘Summer’ over, the arrival of Autumn provides a brief chance for reflection on the year so far, before knuckling down to the winter months ahead.

In the lead up to a break at the end of August, I enjoyed a very busy time in the studio.

I was very excited to work with Andrew McConnell once again, this time for a show in Dubai (regular visitors may remember my previous post when printing Andrew’s Congo images).

Excited, not least now that Andrew has been crowned a winner of the hallowed World Press Photo contest.

Winning 1st prize in the Singles category, Andrew also won 1st Prize in the Stories category with his series The Last Colony.

Andrew describes the project in more detail:

“Having lived and worked in Africa for a number of years, I was intrigued by Western Sahara as it was always the country on that continent that I heard the least about. So I read the history and was shocked to learn that the conflict there had never been resolved and that tens of thousands of indigenous Saharawi were still languishing in Algerian refugee camps. I thought it was a story that simply had to be told.

The style of photography came about because I wanted the images to have a strong message: to relate to the outside world the Saharawi issue and the injustice. I wanted to give a sense that this is one long night for the Saharawis, one lasting 35 years. To show very little of the land emphasizes that they are landless, and very simply by lighting them in the darkness I was saying, “Look! These people are here!” Finally I wanted the viewer to see what I had seen; a people utterly forgotten, abandoned, out of the world’s consciousness: a people as ghosts.”

The A1 and A2 prints looked stunning ahead of their shipment to Dubai, utilising one of my all-time favourite combinations—HP’s Vivera Pigment Ink on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm paper.

For now, I shall leave you with more images to enjoy from The Last Colony series…

I’ve enjoyed busy times in the studio of late and simply had to share this new work from Paul Kenny—a peony and tulip as you’ve never seen them before.

As ever, I enjoy the stunning three-dimensional sensation I am able to achieve with my HP DJZ3200 and Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm.  I hope these images manage to convey that sensation to you too…

Following on from my post last Friday, I thought you might like a glimpse into some prints I am making for Julian Calverley’s portfolio.

You can see further images from Julian’s new body of work by visiting his superb blog…

 

Sunday started sadly today for the photographic community with the news that Chris Dickie has passed away.

An author, publisher, editor and enthusiast for all things photographic, Chris was probably best known as being the driving force behind Ag Magazine, The International Quarterly Journal of Photographic Art & Practice.

Ag Magazine is a superb publication, the only periodical to which I have subscribed in recent times.  It is self-billed as, “The Home of Photography”—a statement with which no reader could surely argue.

I didn’t know Chris very well at all; we met once and had a few chats over the phone.  Nevertheless, he has been in my thoughts an awful lot today.

A leading light has sadly been extinguished and I pass on my heart-felt wishes to his family.