Even more books.......

My last exhibition catalogue and the 'Wildwood' book signalled both a change in my photography and the technology of printing. 

The work in Sardinia was the last that I undertook in black and white and the technology used to make the printing plates  was the traditional photo litho method. It was printed 'in house' at Aberystwyth University School of Art on an aging offset press. The technician however did a great job coaxing out some wonderful reproductions. 

'Sardinia' exhibition catalogue, 2001

The University of Wales has a great tradition of fine printing with the Gregynog Press, based at Gregynog House near Newtown. It is still producing wonderful hand bound volumes on presses that use hot metal type for the text and more often than not, woodcuts and etchings for the illustrations. 

 In the past I have been accused of being a little conservative in adopting new technologies but actually this is not true. What I believe is that we should embrace the new for its benefits and additional possibilities, while continuing to appreciate older methodologies for the qualities they have. They are not mutually exclusive. I have always learned and adopted any technique or technology if I felt it would help or enhance my work. 

Many people thought I was incapable of photographing or printing in colour because for many years I simply chose to work in black and white. While they appreciated my skills at black and white printing they seemed to forget that I had been printing in colour for commercial work since the mid sixties. Colour printing then was a long, laborious process. It involved five baths of unpleasant chemicals and took nearly an hour excluding drying the print. I must have spent, in total, many months in the colour darkroom if you were to tot up the hours churning out thousands of prints over the years. I always feel that I am pickled in formaldehyde. (One of the fixing baths contained this). 

Laying out the 'Wildwood' book

My change then to working in colour for the 'Wildwood' work was, from a technical point of view an easy transition. I made work prints in the darkroom and these were used as reference prints by the lab when they made the large exhibition prints. I also used them for editing the book layout and sequence as they closely matched to size of the reproductions on the page.



I had learned some scanning techniques and had access to a large format negative scanner that could handle the 10" x 8" negatives. This meant that I maintained control of the images and just sent scans off to the publishers. In turn they did a great job and when the proofs came back they needed little or no adjustments. One of the times when the benefits of (relatively) new technology comes to the aid of traditional image making. 

'Wildwood' book, double page spread.

'In Wildwood' book. Lars Muller publishers, 2008

From initial layout to finished book was a seamless and hassle-free process. I am grateful to Lars Muller publishers in Switzerland for their sympathetic handling of my subject matter and the professionalism of their staff and organisation.