ASMP Printing Workshop
Join us for a comprehensive workshop in collaboration with ASMP Norcal on Fine Art Photography Printing:
WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 26TH FROM 10 AM to 4:30 PM
THE IMAGE FLOW, 401 Miller St., Mill Valley, CA, 415-388-3569
Visit www.asmpnorcal.org for more information on tickets and presenters.
Session 1
Fine Art Prints
This section of the workshop will go over fine art printing, as it relates to the new and traditional materials and methods: silver, inkjet, digital press, and alternative process prints
What are some important qualities of a finished print? What can a professional printer can do for you?
Hahnemuhle
This section will cover how to choose between different inkjet papers and how they behave differently. What is archivability? There will be a discussion of different inks, acid, environmental exposure factors and paper profiles
Session 2 & 3
Overview of Digital Workflow and Capture
This section will include an overview of topics in your printing workflow: input, processing, output, color calibrated workflows, color profiles and consistency.
The Digital Darkroom
How do you create the perfect Master File? Here, we will go over the basics of Digital Asset management, global versus local adjustments, plugins, and sharpening.
Jason Hanasik’s Portraiture Projects
We first discovered Jason Hanasik’s work through his submissions to our recent exhibition at the lab, “The Americans 2013.”His portraits of youth NJROTC participant Sharrod have a pensive, authentic feel to them, and we were interested in learning more about his process.
Take a look at our interview below to learn more about his project with Sharrod, “I slowly watched him disappear,” and other works in “He Opened Up Somewhere Along the Eastern Shore” and “My father (and other men).”
Kim Sikora: How did you first become connected with Sharrod as a subject? What inspired this project?
Jason Hanasik: During my first semester of graduate school, I started a project that would become my thesis work called “He Opened Up Somewhere Along the Eastern Shore.” By the end of my first semester, I realized that I was working with and on a larger idea about the evolution and devolving of the military body. So, when my father asked me what I wanted to do during my winter break, I told him that I’d love to meet someone who was going through the same NJROTC program that some of the men in my project had also gone through. To my surprise, he said that a coworker of his had a son who was at my alma mater and was just starting NJROTC.
I met Sharrod and his mother Angie a few days later and made the first few images for what is now known as “I slowly watched him disappear.” Sharrod (balcony) is actually the first image I ever made of Sharrod.
KS: What changes have you seen as your project progressed?
JH: When Sharrod and I first started working together he was shy. As we found our groove, I became a big brother of sorts and in between photographs he’d ask me questions that I imagine would normally be reserved for a father figure or a very close confidant.
About midway through the project, seeing the frustration in his mother’s eyes, I ended up teaching him how to drive in the city hall parking lot. And when we were done, I could see that both he and I were tired of the fantasy that the uniform and ROTC afforded. He was tired of playing their game and I had lost him to other curiosities. He’s now a sophomore at a college in Atlanta studying mechanical engineering.
Apart from the relationship progress, as an artist, I realized that I was becoming very interested in the movement of the body across multiple frames and through video. Midway through the project, I made “Sharrod (Turn/Twirl)” and when I look back, I see my move to making still image triptychs in the project as a direct result of figuring out how to capture movement in time via still imagery.
KS: Can you speak a little bit about your photographic relationship with your subjects? We’re interested in learning more about how photographers use different methods or techniques to get the images they want.
JH: I develop a relationship that is birthed out of trust or we eventually arrive at that place. When I was shooting “He Opened Up Somewhere Along the Eastern Shore,” I had the voices of some unfortunate people in my head saying things like, “these are your surrogate boyfriends.”
These people/voices were incorrectly mapping a sexuality onto these men in pretty one dimensional ways. So, when my friend Steven (one of the main protagonists of that project), asked me what I was doing with the images, I had this moment of panic because I thought he had heard something or was starting to go down that same path. I breathed and said what I thought I was doing and in the end, he trusted me even more. So much so, that the next morning he said, “I have some images you might want to see.” The images and video clips he showed from his time in Iraq were the final piece of the puzzle for that project and I doubt I would have ever found/been able to make images that did the same kind of work. I also don’t think Steven would have ever lied down in his uniform in a bed of flowers had that trust not already been established.
KS: What is the future of this body of work?
JH: “I slowly watched him disappear” is slated to be published this fall by the newly formed imprint, Kris Graves Projects. Kris Graves is a colleague of mine from undergrad who opened a gallery in Brooklyn and has now turned his boundless energy towards the world of publishing. But really, this body of work is a part of a larger project that is still untitled and still unfinished.
In the larger project, the viewer will be invited to focus both on the individual narratives and stories as well as look at the whole series as a way of thinking about performance of the (male) military body. We’ll see the fantasy of it, the acculturation into it, and finally some form of the destruction of that body.
KS: Do you have any new projects you’d like to tell us about?
JH: I have a few new projects which I’m slowly working on. The first is called “This is the Hanasik home” which is an extension of an installation I showed a year ago at the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery. This project looks at the idea of the family home, the expectations therein, and how we imbue a place, much like we do a photograph, with meaning that isn’t necessarily present for anyone but the family or individual viewer.
I am also working on a publication that will better represent my thesis work called “He Opened Up Somewhere Along the Eastern Shore” and a novella titled “My father (and other men).”
KS: We all struggle at times, balancing our personal work and professional lives. How have you made time to photograph and make work?
JH: Well, I don’t think we all struggle. Fortunately for some, there are trust funds or lucky investments or hard earned savings accounts which afford the time to just make. Sadly, I’m not in that position so, for me, it’s about priorities.
Last year was a year where two major things happened in my life. The first was a life long dream was attained when I exhibited “Sharrod (Turn/Twirl)” at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. I was also in talks twice to move back to the East Coast and take a fairly well compensated but highly demanding position with two different companies. I walked away from all of the employment offers when I realized that it would be a long time before I would make “my” work again. When I was at the Hockney exhibit at the De Young a few months ago, a woman was amazed at how many drawings he had made over the course of a year. I thought to myself, this is his job and a major part of his life.
I think the narrative for every artist is different but for me, leading an engaged, mindful, generous and “creative” life is my number one priority. When I’m not actively making something, I’m thinking about the world of images and ways to play with them so I kind of feel like I am making work all the time. Given that disposition, I don’t feel so bad and I don’t feel like I am wasting my time when I walk into my 9-5 Monday through Friday. In fact, I kind of look forward to it.
David Egan Exhibition at 4×5 Gallery
We came across David Egan’s work in his recent show at our favorite Lower Haight photo space, 4×5 Gallery. We felt David’s photographs conveyed a beautiful sense of stillness and untold stories, and so we contacted him for a short interview on the images in The Long Way Around.
Kim Sikora: Can you talk about your recent work?
David Egan: In the summer of 2012, I drove across the United States from San Francisco, CA to my child hood home in Fort Washington, MD and I brought my large format camera and 140 sheets of Kodak Portra 400 4×5 film along for the ride. In the beginning, the trip was just a way to get out and make photographs. As I made my way across the US, I found myself photographing the land, architecture, objects, and random strangers that I encountered. … The vision is about transformation. The project is titled The Long Way Around. This series of photographs is my search for places, people, and things that demonstrate the shift in the American landscape and my own personal search and transition. This shift specifically is a change in the appearance of the United States, things across America look identical.
KS: What kinds of situations or environments inspire you?
DE: I find everyday situations and places to be intriguing if captured within the right frame of time. I photograph real environments. I am often inspired by objects and places that offer feelings of nostalgia and hints of the past.
KS: You have a solo show currently on view at 4×5 Gallery. Can you describe some of your editing decisions in what you included in the show?
DE: Working with Gordon Szeto and Hung Tran of 4×5 Gallery, we edited images from my series The Long Way Around to work in a cohesive manner for their gallery space. The show contains 15 total images all of which are landscape photographs. We originally had discussed having portraits in the show as well but I personally decided to exclude them from this showing. Editing work is always a tough process as I find myself wanting certain images for personal reasons and it can be difficult to be objective at times.
KS: How has your imagery changed in the past few years?
DE: I have been fascinated with the changing landscapes in the US for awhile now but my work has certainly evolved and progressed over the past few years. It was not until 2009 that I truly got serious about making photographs and enrolled in graduate school to pursue an MFA in photography which I completed in 2012. I am very much of the mindset that hard work and dedication gets you places so I just continue to work on my photography. I study a lot of photographic history as well as currents trends within the art but nothing compares to getting out there and just learning on the job.
KS: Is there a new project you’re working on you’d like to tell us about?
DE: There is a new project that I am just starting to work on but it is in the very beginning stages. The series focuses on the theme of winter and my nostalgic feelings and memories.
Check out David’s website to see the portraits from The Long Way Around, alongside some of his other photographic work.
Bradley Garrett “Place Hacker” Extraordinaire
Bradley Garrett is a daring, skilled, trespassing photographer. Here are some of his images from his book, titled Explore Everything: Place Hacking the City.
Tracey Snelling, Views on Interiors
We’re enamored with the intricate, voyeuristic worlds of Tracey Snelling’s photography.
From her site:
“Driving down the street at night, I look at the lit windows of the houses that I pass, and I wonder who lives there. What is taking place behind that drawn window shade? A tired motel sign along the side of the highway still buzzes and beckons travelers to come stay in one of the faded rooms. An old furniture store on a street in a forgotten downtown is dark and the sofas are covered with dust. I want to know the stories of the people who once inhabited these areas.
My work derives from voyeurism, film noir, and geographical and architectural location. … Who are these people? What do they do and why do they do it?
…At the core of my work resides the intersection of place and experience. I try to do this with as much respect as possible to foreign cultures and tradition, while staying true to the call of the artist by shining a light on the little seen corners. Ultimately, my personal views and ideas come into play, and I believe it is this melding, the known with the unknown, the foreign with the familiar, that fuels my work and creates such a rich experience for the viewer.
View more or Tracey’s work on her site.
Artistic Identity
Two local photographers share their views on forming a photographic identity.
I mage © Doug Birbaum
Kim Sikora: How would you describe your aesthetic?
Doug Birnbaum: I would describe my aesthetic as having a reference to classic hollywood films. I love shooting people and I like to plan series and shoots around cinematic moments. I love old films. I was a filmmaker before being a still photographer so I like to dream up shoots with people based around locations, props and wardrobe. I always dream of being able to direct bigger and bigger crews to achieve large scale production.
In photography so much of our aesthetics derives from the equipment that we use. Many times photography is dated because of the state of the art equipment available to the artist. I shot a series a couple of years ago about the golden age of California surf culture. We took some old Woodies down the beach and I shot up and down the coast on old film cameras, from 4×5 to Medium format on Ilford Black and White film. By stepping back into a photographic process that more closely matched the era of the historical piece that I was trying to create I found a harmony. This series really informed what I would try to do moving forward, to use current digital equipment to come closer to a film look. I needed to shoot a series on film to inform myself how things should look.
I also collect some old vintage photographs that I find in garage sales and thrift stores. I am usually looking for quirky stuff that is beyond anything that I could dream up on my own to shoot. I just love the richness of old photographs and I really love the way that the paper looks as it starts to discolor over time. In the past I have been known to soak my own photographs in tea to get more of an old fashioned look to them after they dry out. This process takes some of my photographs outside of the time that it was created and places the image further back in the past, it suddenly feels more nostalgic.
Anthony Kurtz: Painterly, atmospheric, cinematic, raw, adventurous and hyper-realistic. My goal has never been to perfectly represent reality because I’d like to think of myself as an artist. I need to apply my “paint” to make it my artwork. I think I might be a failed painter or director of photography because I’m mostly inspired by cinematography and European fine art painters like Rembrandt and Caravaggio or the American landscape painters of the late 1800′s.
When I was starting out, people were talking about “shadow detail” but I was going the opposite route, pushing the blacks to dominate my photos. Now, as I’m getting more experienced, I’m toning it back a little because in 2013 everything is starting to look the same. I want my work to evolve while staying true to my values
Image © Anthony Kurtz 
Image © Anthony Kurtz
Great Exhibition Spaces in the Bay
Here’s a list of some great local photography spaces, some of them non-profits, community-based, or all-around amazing.
Southern Exposure
SFCamerawork
Mission Cultural Center
Goforaloop
4×5 Gallery
PHOTO Oakland
Krowswork
Harvey Milk Center for the Arts
SomaArts
ArtSpan
PROArts Gallery
Intersection for the Arts
And here are instructions for submitting your work to our friends over at SFCamerawork.
From their site:
Each year, SF Camerawork stages six to eight major exhibitions featuring photography, video, digital media, and film. Additionally, public programming in conjunction with exhibitions often includes performances, screenings, readings, and lectures. Camerawork’s program calendar, conceptualized and organized by Camerawork’s Curator, Curatorial Council, and guest curators, is scheduled 18—24 months in advance.
Submissions should contain the following:
1. Up to 20 digital images formatted as JPEG files, not to exceed 800 x 600 pixels, 180 dpi. Please label each image file with your name and a number that corresponds to an annotated image list (see #3).
2. Up to three DVDs with up to three works (or excerpts of works). There is no duration limit. Please label the file with your name and a number that corresponds to an annotated image list (see #3).
3. An annotated image list (PDF or Word document) to correspond with visual support materials. Please include the numeral corresponding to each image or video, the title, series (if applicable), year, medium, and a brief description of each work.
4. Relevant printed materials including brochures, publications, books, etc.
5. For websites and web-based work, please submit a list of URLs.
6. A current resume or curriculum vitae and artist statement (PDF or Word documents). Your artist statement should describe your work in a simple and straightforward manner, and should not exceed one page.
7. A self-addressed stamped envelope. Submissions will not be returned without an SASE.
Please do not submit original artwork.
Send submissions to:
Chuck Mobley, Director
SF Camerawork
1011 Market Street, Second Floor
San Francisco, CA
94103
Jeremy Sachs Michaels’ Moments of Intimacy
Photographer Jeremy Sachs Michaels has a body of images documenting life with his girlfriend, Lauren, over the past few years. Here he is in a short interview about his motivations to capture the intimacy of relationships.
Kim Sikora: Photographing someone so close to you, are there any boundaries surrounding moments that can be shared?
Jeremy Sachs-Michaels: There are boundaries, but not the kind that are imposed by her. Lauren trusts me and I photograph her constantly. I find that I impose the boundaries upon myself when it becomes editing time. I want to show her in certain ways and not in others. There are photographs of her that I’ve taken and absolutely love, but I don’t think anyone else will ever see them. A mentor once told me, “Just because somebody wants something from you as a photographer, it doesn’t mean you have to give it to them.” I think he was talking in terms of business, but I feel like it applies to my editing process. I can include nudie pics or things that are more lusty, or even trashy or dirty, but sometimes those things distract from the rest of the images. I love quiet subtlety.
KS: When you are shooting Lauren, are there specific moments you hope to capture? How do you decide which times are meaningful vs. not meaningful?
JSM: I usually don’t know until I see it. Often times we’ll be somewhere, or even home, and something about her and the light and what’s happening comes together and that make it meaningful. Other times I feel like something meaningful is happening and I take a picture of it and it doesn’t feel meaningful in the photograph. In some ways it’s a crap shoot. I spend lots of time looking at my photographs, as well as other people’s, and I have ideas about what I feel works and what doesn’t.
KS: What are your strategies in balancing your time for commercial vs. personal work?
JSM: This is something that I think is hard for me, but in the end always works out. Often times the personal work leads to commercial work. Lauren and I just shot a fashion lifestyle piece together. They hired me as the photographer and loved how I photograph her, so they hired her as the model. The answer to your question is that if I have “commercial” work that needs tending to, I tend to it. If I don’t have to work on that I do my personal work. All I need for most of the Lauren pictures is a camera. This is the farthest things from technical photography here. There’s no tricks. I just try to feel my way through the pictures. If it feels good I keep going.
KS: Also, are there specific photos in this group that have a story behind them?
JSM: All of these pictures have a story behind them.
We were snowshoeing last winter in Grand Teton. No one was around and we were walking on top of over 4 feet of snow. Lauren was showing off her walk and fell through and couldn’t get up. I couldn’t help pull her up because I would fall through as well, so I just took a picture instead.
The image with Lauren crying was right after my grandfather died. We went upstate to be with my family and on the drive she had lots of feelings. It was a bittersweet moment. She was sad and something sad had just happened, but at the same time she was crying about my grandfather, which in some way showed me that she had become part of my family and that made me happy.
Lauren has two cockatiels, Angel and Dennis. She loves them very much and they required baths occasionally. This moment could be any one of many, but I love this photograph.
The hand print is one that I took early one morning when I was leaving for a shoot before she woke up. I guess she’d slept on her hand and then rolled over while I was in the shower. I noticed this mark on her face while I was getting dressed. I think it’s both beautiful and quiet because she’s sleeping and the light, but the angry redness of the hand print is really shocking and unusual.
Fine Art Printing Workshops at the Lab
FINE ART PRINTING WORKSHOP SERIES
ENROLLMENT BEGINS 9/1
Seth Dickerman (left)
Do you have favorite images that deserve to be printed and displayed? Perhaps you have images that you know will make great prints, but you aren’t sure how to get them to look their best.
Dickerman Prints is now offering fine art printing tutorials and workshops. Through collaboration and instruction, we will work to give your images greater depth and range. Learn how to make beautiful, engaging prints that articulate what you would like your photograph to say.
2 Hour Personal Photoshop Printing Tutorial, $375
Uses of 10 feet of 30” wide Fujicolor Crystal Archive paper is included. (A $300 value.)
This private session includes two hours of one-on-one instruction with Master Printer Seth Dickerman and 25 square feet of 30″ wide Fuji Crystal Archive paper, exposed and processed in our state-of-the-art Polielletronicca printer.* The tutorial will be tailored to the needs of each participant, and can accommodate photographers with advanced Photoshop skills, or those just beginning their digital practice. Regardless of experience, this tutorial will give you the tools to make your prints better than you thought possible!
Areas of assistance can include:
- image manipulation, retouching and editing
- tonality, density and contrast
- uses of curves, levels, layers, masks, brushes
- image sharpening
- image rescue techniques
- darkroom techniques as they translate into digital photography best practices
- file sizing
- formatting decisions
- cropping
- editing
- sequencing
- portfolio preparation
- exhibition preparation
- paper choices
- print finishing options
Seth Dickerman has been a professional printer since 1978, working with many of the country’s most respected photographers. A highly experienced teacher, Seth has trained many other professional printers. He has taught at both the UC Berkeley ASUC Art Center and at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, and has led numerous other fine printing workshops. His extensive darkroom experience uniquely informs his work with digital materials. Seth has exhibited his personal work widely and is represented by Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles. His work is in many public and private collections.
*10 linear feet of 30” wide paper will yield up to 45 8×10” prints, or a lesser number of larger sized prints. Any remaining unexposed paper will be available you for you to print on at a later time, at your convenience. Additional personal tutorial time is $150 per hour, and includes 4 feet of 30” wide paper. Arrangements can also be made for those working with negatives and transparencies.
Image © Baron Wolman
Fine Printing Group Workshop: Making your prints look their best, $750
Three sessions, for 3-6 students. Use of 15 feet of 30” wide Fujicolor Crystal Archive paper is included. ($450 value)
Led by Seth Dickerman, this workshop will cover a variety of fine art printing techniques. We will look at our prints critically, discuss how they may be improved, and then print them to our satisfaction. The workshop is designed to give participants a solid foundation of digital editing skills. We will focus on professional digital darkroom techniques, covering topics like tonality, contrast, density, and image manipulation.
Session 1 (October 4th: 7:30 – 9:30 PM): Introductory Lecture, Group Critique, Demonstration
Session 2 (October 5th: 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM): Group Printing Day
Participants will be encouraged to continue with their printing on their own over the following 2 weeks in preparation for Session 3.
Session 3 (October 25th: 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM): Group Critique and Printing/reprinting
Unexpected Joy via the Art of Eric Staller
Kim Sikora: Your light drawing photographs are full of questions about your process. Especially after seeing that these were created in the 70s. Can you share some info on how these were created?
Eric Staller: New York City at night was an enchanting place for me. The plazas, bridges, parks and monuments, empty and eerily quiet at night, were dramatic stage sets waiting to be transformed. Transformed by my magic wand: the 4th of July sparkler. Late at night I drove around in a beat-up station wagon, looking for places and ideas to jump out at me. When the moment was right I set up my Nikon on a tripod and planned a choreography with light. One of the first light drawings was Walker Street:
Each sparkler lasted about a minute, so that was the amount of time I had to make the drawing. I would lock the camera shutter open, light the sparkler and quickly walk down the street, holding the sparkler at curb level, to complete the composition before the sparkler went out. I felt a strong sense of exhilaration, like running the 100-meter dash with a flaming torch! Getting the film back from the lab was even more exhilarating: it was magic, my presence was invisible! There was just this trail of liquid fire.
Suddenly I was drunk with the possibilities. I proceeded to outline everything for my photos: cars, trucks, streets, monuments. The energy was packed into one-minute performances. I worked through the night and although I was alone and even lonely, my romance for the city was sweet indeed. At dawn I would go to Fulton Street to watch the fishermen come in, or to the Lower East Side for the first hot bagels of the day.
My dreams in 1977 were taking the forms of fantasy architectures of light. … By then I found that a 10-minute sparkler was available on special order. I attached one to the end of a broomstick and, using my arm as a compass, scribed arcs overhead as I walked up the middle of the street.
The challenge now was to take it intellectually further with each photo; to wonder what effect this or that choreographic device would produce; and then, to be continually surprised by the result. For Lightubes I spun the sparkler on the end of a string as I walked toward the camera; then ran back and did it again.
I mounted 5 sparklers on a broomstick and held it vertically, at arm’s length for the 5-minute exposure Ribbon of Hanover Street It occurred to me more than once that these were performances with light. Crowds of curious garbage men, night watchmen, workaholic Wall Streeters and the homeless gathered to watch the lunatic with the blazing broomstick!
KS: We love your “urban UFO” series. (Especially when Big Bang Theory drops by the lab!). Have any of these pieces grown to become your favorite?
ES: I guess I would have to say that my Lightmobile is my favorite, as it was the genesis of a 27 year-long series of mobile public artworks. It has travelled the world and is the most widely understood and loved of the series.
The Big Bang Theory I built in Amsterdam in 1996 and since moving to SF in 2010 it has become my town car. I never tire of watching the double-takes, mouths falling open, people going: “huh, what the –?”
KS: In your writing about Fish-o-vision you say that you sometimes receive questions about “the alienation of being an artist in this material world.” Are there any works of yours that speak to this idea intentionally?
ES: All of these pieces ask more questions than they answer. I want to challenge people to think and feel, to come up with their own meaning, or to allow for the unexplainable. In fact, I can’t entirely explain where my ideas come from. They bubble up from my subconscious and it is often the idea that appears the most absurd at first that I become obsessed with and end up building.
KS: Artists in this city face some tough obstacles when it comes to creating the time and money to make new work. How do you manage your work and your time?
ES: Well, if you want/need to be an artist and also want to make a living at it, you might as well buy a lottery ticket every week as well! A lucky outgrowth of the Urban UFOs is my patented circular 7-person ConferenceBike, which I manufacture in Germany. There are now more than 300 of them putting smiles on faces in 18 countries.