Posts Tagged ‘Black and White Prints’

Celebrating Wilderness By William Neill

August 26th, 2010

Celebrating Wilderness by William Neill

Landscape Photography Bloggers’ First Guest Post

Written by William Neill 4/1/06 For July 2006 Issue of Outdoor Photographer. Read more at OutdoorPhotographer.com and visit WilliamNeill.com or William Neill’s Photo Blog at WilliamNeill.com/blog/

DAVID LELAND HYDE NOTE: Guy Tal is usually ahead of me on most contemporary photography subjects. He also recently posted a tribute to William Neill on his blog called, “Inspiration: William Neill’s Yosemite Volume One.” I had asked William Neill to publish his article on my blog months ago. Fortuitously Guy Tal’s empathic credit to William Neill and this sensitive piece by William Neill himself posted in the same week. I am grateful to William Neill for my first guest post.

Celebrating Wilderness by William Neill

Sunset From Mt. Hoffman, Yosemite National Park, California, 2006 by William Neill.

On March 30, 2006, Philip Hyde passed away at the age of 84.  The community of photographers and nature lovers lost a true friend and pioneer. (See the June 2006 issue of Outdoor Photographer, A Voice for the Wild).  I count myself as being very blessed for having known him.

Many years before meeting Philip back in the early 1980s, I discovered his work in the Sierra Club’s famous “Exhibit-Format Series” of books.  His images opened my eyes, along with those of thousands of other photographers and wilderness enthusiasts, to the beautiful and endangered landscapes he had explored.  He helped us see the great potential use landscape photographs could have for environmental protection.  Philip’s images spoke to me quietly yet forcefully of wild nature’s value, and showed me the impact hard work, dedication and selflessness can have.

Philip’s sphere of influence has expanded outward far and wide, quietly and profoundly.  Hyde was the workhorse for the Sierra Club book series, providing images for nearly every battle of theirs in the 1960s and 1970s.  When David Brower, the director of the Club and creator of the book series, needed images to help preserve an endangered landscape, Philip and camera went to work.  Books in which his photographs are instrumental include The Last Redwoods, Slickrock, Island in Time: The Point Reyes Peninsula, Time and The River Flowing, Navajo Wildlands, The Wild Cascades: Forgotten Wildlands, and This Is Dinosaur: Echo Park Country and Its Magic Rivers.

I have little doubt that every published nature photographer of my generation has been inspired by Philip’s efforts.  The large number of photographers, professional or not, working today to use their imagery to help preserve wild places, both locally and on national issues, owe Philip a great debt.

When I looked at those Sierra Club books as a college student, my wildest dream was to use my images in such books and other forums to further the cause of conservation, and to make photographs for a living.  The success of the Sierra Club books not only gave a great boost to its own membership, but also showed publishers that such books had commercial value, thus spawning the publication of thousands of books modeled after them.  The resulting nature book industry allowed many photographers to develop careers, and brought to light many issues of preservation.  Even those not familiar with the full extent of Hyde’s accomplishments can trace their roots to his efforts.

Beyond his environmental contributions, Hyde has earned an honored place for his art.  His photographs have a quality of serene reality.  His choice of camera is a 4×5 for revealing the landscape in sharp detail.  The color is not amplified.  The light he preferred was understated, and he did not favor the “magic hour” that seduces most of us.  He has a disdain for the redundant sunset motif.  He chose Ektachrome film, over Kodachrome or Fujichrome, for its more neutral reproduction of nature’s colors.  In similar fashion, Philip’s compositions and use of lenses are simple and direct.  Rarely do you see a photograph where camera position or lens exaggerates any aspect of a landscape.

Commenting on his evolution from being a black and white photographer to predominantly using color, Philip wrote in his book The Range of Light, “Black-and-white lends itself to manipulation that can dramatize a subject.  Color tends to record what is seen, so it is no coincidence that I use color for that purpose.  I don’t feel nature needs to be dramatized: it is dramatic enough! …Color photographs that…rely too much on the shock value of color alone will not sustain interest.”

Philip’s approach, which seems at first to show the landscape in ordinary descriptive terms, is his attempt to make us realize nature’s profound beauty is always there for us to see, not just during a monumental performance of light or color.  There is selflessness to this approach.  In his images, his own importance recedes in the face of nature’s beauty and need for protection.  He once wrote to me, “There is no limit to what a man can do so long as he does not care who gets the credit.”

Many years ago, I hiked up Mt. Hoffman in Yosemite.  I walked slowly upward, alone in my thoughts. I carried all my 4×5 gear to the summit, planning to photograph the sunset and then hike down in the twilight.  At the top, the views of Yosemite’s wilderness stretch out all around.  There was virtually no sign of human life below.  The sunset light warmed the surrounding peaks, and the Sierra Nevada displayed why it is called The Range of Light!  The serenity I felt was powerful.

Thanks to far-sighted pioneers, this rare form of sanctuary exists for millions to enjoy.  The initial preservation of Yosemite by President Lincoln in 1864 and subsequent the formation of the National Park System, the inspiring words and energetic crusading of John Muir, the monumental photographs of Yosemite by Ansel Adams have all contributed to the cause of wilderness preservation.

At times like this, when a great person in our field or our life is lost, we might wonder who could ever replace them?  It is an important time to stop and remember the impact each one of us can have.  John Muir saw threats to the wildness of Yosemite, and fought to preserve it.  Ansel Adams felt deeply moved by the beauty of Yosemite and the Sierra that Muir helped preserve, and used his photographs to fight further for wilderness preservation.  Philip Hyde, learning from the example of Muir, Adams and David Brower, worked tirelessly to photograph threatened landscapes. Many photographers have followed Hyde’s example.  As a ripple expanding outward in a circle, more will follow those who have followed him.  We must all acknowledge our mentors, and I am proud to count Philip Hyde as one of mine.  We honor their legacy by following their example.  Let the circle be unbroken. — William Neill

I am interested primarily in what Emerson called “the integrity of natural objects.”  They express wholeness and individuality, and it is this sense of place that is the foundation of my work.  My life in photography has been taken up in exploring natural places for their beauty and uniqueness.  It has been a labor of love, and nature has provided me the perfect object. — Philip Hyde

William Neill’s Note:  The North American Nature Photography Association offers a grant in honor of Philip Hyde.  See http://www.nanpafoundation.org/hyde_grant.html for more info and for applications.

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To sign up for newsletter updates, including info about his BetterPhoto.com online workshops, please see William Neill’s web page at WilliamNeill.com.

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About Archival Fine Art Digital Prints

July 19th, 2010

Archival Fine Art Digital Prints | Fine Art Photography | Print Making

For more information about NEW RELEASES see the blog post, “New Releases Now At Special Introductory Pricing.” To see the photographs go to Philip Hyde Photography.

Printing Materials And Processes

Philip Hyde archival fine art digital prints in color were printed in 2008, 2009 and the beginning of 2010 with a 13-ink Epson 9800 Inkjet printer on Premium Luster paper. The archival fine art digital prints in black and white were printed in the first half of 2009 on a 16-ink Epson 11880 Inkjet printer on Premium Luster paper and in the second half of 2009 and beyond on Crane Silver Rag paper. The color archival digital prints beginning in 2010 are now printed with a Lightjet 5000 printer on Fuji Crystal Archive paper, in which case they are not pigment prints but prints digitally exposed with light. On occasion the color prints are also printed with the Epson 9800 on a new archival 100 percent cotton rag paper. The life of any of these prints is much longer than those of print making methods of the past. In addition, the process of translating a 4X5 or 5X7 film original transparency or negative into digital print-ready form is complicated, expensive, time consuming and expert labor intensive. The highest quality equipment and methods known are used at each step starting with drum scanning and ending with print preparation.

Fine Art Photographer And Print Maker Carr Clifton

Landscape photographer and print maker Carr Clifton has made archival fine art digital prints for Philip Hyde since 2001, five years before Philip Hyde passed on. When Carr Clifton expressed interest in photography over 35 years ago, his mother took him to meet Philip Hyde who happened to be a neighbor. From then on Philip Hyde was a mentor and friend to Carr Clifton. Carr Clifton has become a highly respected outdoor photographer in his own right. The two landscape photographers worked on several book projects together. Also, side-by-side for many years their photographs dominated the Sierra Club Calendars that contained the work of the most famous landscape photographers of the time.

Philip Hyde authorized and signed five of the new archival fine art digital prints before he passed on. The new prints are produced by Philip Hyde’s son, David Leland Hyde and Carr Clifton. This equates with Brett Weston or Cole Weston printing Edward Weston’s photographs, as other famous photographers heirs have done. Alan Ross has made special edition Ansel Adams prints for many years. A great amount of time, effort and expense has gone into matching as close as possible the way that Philip Hyde printed the photographs. Having been around Philip Hyde for many years, both David Leland Hyde and Carr Clifton work to maintain Philip Hyde’s straight photography aesthetics of limiting color saturation and maintaining tasteful photo realism when no Philip Hyde model print is available.

Rare Philip Hyde Original Prints Often Long Sold Out

Philip Hyde original prints are very rare and most of the best images have long sold out. Also, because Philip Hyde lost his eyesight, many of his best later portraits, cityscapes, and landscape photographs were never printed. When Philip Hyde was print making himself, he produced traditional black and white silver gelatin prints, color dye-transfer prints and color Cibachrome prints. He did not print the same best images over and over like many photographers. Each time he came home from a landscape photography trip, he printed only 2 or 4 color prints from that excursion. If there was an order for more he might print as many as 2 to 4 more prints given the time, difficulty and cost of color print making. In the earlier days before his transition to color in the early to mid 1970s, the black and white prints were made in edtions of 4 or 6. On rare occasions with only a few of the images, he printed as many as 10 or 12 prints. After printing from one project, he would go on a new trip, return and print the new images from the new outing. He rarely went back and printed older images. As a result, most prints of the well-known images are now gone.

New Archival Fine Art Digital Prints Allow Collectors To Enjoy New Releases And Old Favorites Again

The new archival fine art digital prints allow collectors and fans of landscape photography to enjoy new releases and the old favorites that in many cases have not been printed or exhibited for decades. The archival fine art digital prints are limited in production by the expense and difficulty of translation from large format film to quality digital images. Each of the archival fine art digital prints are produced in special editions that are numbered. The prints of any given photograph go up in price $100 in all print sizes each time 10 prints of any size sell. For example, “Virginia Creeper” has sold nearly 10 prints and will go up in price $100 soon. Those photographs that sell higher quantities will eventually become much higher valued than the others. For example, when 200 prints of an image have sold, it will be valued at $2,000 more in all print sizes than it was to begin with and $2,000 more than prints of the other photographs. This will not only increase perceived and actual value of the prints over time, but will limit production and sales of each print and make them more attractive to collectors.

The Mission, In Part

A portion of proceeds from fine art digital print sales will fund green energy development, land conservation and other environmental causes. Philip Hyde’s prints are in permanent collections in institutions such as The Smithsonian, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, George Eastman House, Time Life Gallery, California Academy of Sciences, The International Center of Photography and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

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See Philip Hyde Photography for Philip Hyde Archival Fine Art Digital Prints Pricing

For print acquisitions, questions or to just say hi, please contact:
David Leland Hyde
prints@philiphyde.com
Orders can also be placed on the Philip Hyde Photography Website through the Portfolios that contain a Shopping Cart.

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New Philip Hyde Releases At Mountain Light Gallery Exhibition

May 4th, 2010

New Philip Hyde Photographs Never Before Seen By the Public Make A World Premier In The Exhibition At Galen Rowell’s Mountain Light Gallery

Men of Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico, 1990 by Philip Hyde. Never before printed or published.

(See the photograph full screen Click Here.)

Philip Hyde’s “Men of Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico” photographed in 1990 will be part of the “Pioneer Photography of Philip Hyde Exhibition at Mountain Light Gallery” in Bishop, California opening May 8 and running through August 31, 2010. (See also the announcing blog post, “Photography Of Philip Hyde At Mountain Light Gallery” and the related blog post,  “Galen Rowell, Philip Hyde And Outdoor Photographer Style.”) The people photograph, “Men of Oaxaca” breaks the pattern of the typical Philip Hyde landscape photograph. Philip Hyde made a good number of people portraits but rarely published or printed them. “Men of Oaxaca” is also unusual for Philip Hyde in that it was photographed with a 35 mm camera. While “Men of Oaxaca” can be viewed on the Philip Hyde Website, several other new releases in the exhibition are not even on the website yet and have not been printed or published for many years or ever.

One release that is new to archival fine art digital prints is a 1968 photograph called, “Base of Havasu Falls, Havasupai Indian Reservation, Arizona.” Philip Hyde made only two dye transfer prints of this image that are long gone. It was never publicly exhibited as far as the records show. This will be the first gallery exhibition for this photograph. The restoration of this image was very time-consuming because the original Kodak E-3 transparency has deteriorated significantly. The raw drum scan of the original transparency had an orange-magenta caste overall with concentrated streaks, fingerprints and other blotches in the water throughout. Carr Clifton spent over 10 hours working on this one photograph. His process I will write up in another blog post, but suffice now to say that it involved a complex combination of the lasso tool, hue, saturation, color adjustment, color balance, select color, edit-fill, and several other general tools in Photoshop to get all of the flaws out and make the white water look right.

Another photograph that will appear in the Mountain Light Gallery Exhibition that Philip Hyde never printed but that was published by the Sierra Club is “Mt. Jefferson, Jefferson Wilderness Area, Oregon Cascades, Oregon” made in 1959. This photograph the Sierra Club published as a beautiful postcard in 1961. The original transparency and drum scan of it show large, dark forested areas. In the digital age, we were able to lighten the nearly black forests without changing the character of the photograph. As an archival fine art digital print this image has become more beautiful than ever. The lightening of the dark areas has brought out remarkable features in the finished print that could never have been achieved with any older printing process. Philip Hyde had a packer guide he and Ardis Hyde’s gear into the Jefferson Wilderness Area by horseback, while Ardis and Philip Hyde hiked in on foot. Philip Hyde went in to get photographs of the Jefferson Wilderness Area because it had been part of a proposed Oregon Cascades National Park that had some renewed interest in 1959 but not enough to go beyond speculation.

Pioneer Basin, Fourth Recess, John Muir Wilderness, Sierra Nevada High Country, California, 1970 by Philip Hyde. Never before printed or published.

Philip Hyde photographed “Pioneer Basin, Fourth Recess, John Muir Wilderness, Sierra Nevada High Country, California” in 1970. This beautiful photograph sat in the files and was never published or printed. In 2008 it was drum scanned and sat in digital form for another year and a half. Finally near the end of 2009, in search of more good California photographs, particularly of the High Sierra, and considering another image of Kearsarge Lake, I showed “Pioneer Basin, Fourth Recess” to Carr Clifton and he agreed that it ought to be prepared for printing. We printed an 8X10 proof that needed work. Carr Clifton is the Photoshop genius, but I sit in with him sometimes and make suggestions. We at times disagree, but that makes for good discussions and usually better results. I greatly respect him and his photography and he respects my work ethic and how dedicated I am to doing what my father would like. In the case of “Pioneer Basin, Fourth Recess” after we fixed a few technical problems and made another 8X10, it turned out beautifully. Then we printed an 11X14, Wow. We were so enthused about the image that I decided to put it in my 11X14 portfolio book that I take everywhere to show. I decided that we had to print a 16X20 and put it in the Mountain Light Gallery Exhibition. I put it on the website for a while but took it down to await a special announcement like this.

The three new releases that are not yet up on the website will remain off the website and only viewable at Mountain Light Gallery until the exhibition is over at the end of August. In addition to the four prints mentioned above that will be completely new, the exhibition will include 14 images that have never been exhibited before this Century. That makes 18 new prints that will be shown for the first time since Philip Hyde passed on.

Besides new prints, the Mountain Light Gallery Exhibition will include an original black and white silver print of Philip Hyde’s iconic “Minarets From Tarn Above Lake Ediza, Ansel Adams Wilderness, Sierra Nevada, California, 1950.” This photograph of the Minarets Ansel Adams said he liked better than his own. Also in the show will be an original color Cibachrome print of  “Ice On Continental Divide, Yoho National Park, British Columbia, Canada, 1992.” This newer Canadian Rockies image is of sheer rock peaks with forested foothills. Come see all of the new imagery.

Read a Recent Interview of this blog’s author by Richard Wong about Philip Hyde Photography Click Here.

Pioneering Photography of Philip Hyde Exhibition
May 8 Through August 31, 2010

Talk and Opening Reception May 8

Galen Rowell’s Mountain Light Gallery
106 South Main Street
Bishop, California
760-873-7700

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Philip Hyde Photography Now at Weston Gallery

January 31st, 2010

Black And White Prints

(See the photograph full screen: Click Here.)

Surf, Rocks, Point Lobos State Reserve, California, 1949, by Philip Hyde. Part of an Assignment from Minor White, lead instructor at Ansel Adam's Photography Department at the California School of Fine Arts now the San Francisco Art Institute.

ANNOUNCMENT:

A selection of Yosemite National Park and Point Lobos State Reserve Philip Hyde contact 4X5 and 5X7 vintage black and white prints

NOW AVAILABLE AT:

THE WESTON GALLERY

6th Avenue and Delores Street

Carmel, CA   93921

831-624-4453

Ask for Richard Gadd, Gallery Director

Philip Hyde will soon be added to the Weston Gallery Website, a link will be provided and a more official announcement will be made…

For those not within driving distance of Carmel, a small number of vintage photography school era (1946-1950) contact 4X5 and 5X7 Philip Hyde original black and white prints, as well as a few 8X10 vintage original black and white prints, are currently being shown privately. The 4X5 and 5X7 contact prints are not signed by Philip Hyde, but carry his working print “Proof” stamp or “Exhibition Only” stamp. The 8X10 and larger vintage silver prints are signed.

A Photography School Era Vintage Black and White Print Exhibition in the San Francisco Bay Area is in the works for this year. Dates to be finalized later this Spring when the gallery finishes moving into a new space.

COMING SOON TO PHILIP HYDE.COM…A description of Philip Hyde’s modifications and updates to the silver gelatin printing process for black and white prints, with variations as originally taught by Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Minor White at the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute.

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