Posts Tagged ‘dye transfer prints’

Philip Hyde At Home In The Wilds 2

July 28th, 2010

The Now Defunct Darkroom Photography Magazine: Masters of the Darkroom Series Presents Part Two Of An Interview With Philip Hyde By Merry Selk Blodgett

At Home In The Wilds

CONTINUED FROM THE BLOG POST, “Philip Hyde At Home In The Wilds 1.” For more on early color printing and the dye transfer process, see also the blog posts, “The Legend Of Dye Transfer Printing 1,” and “The Legend of Dye Transfer Printing 2.”)

“Even after five years, I haven’t been able to get into all the refinements of the dye transfer process.”

Mt. Brooks, Brooks Range, Denali National Park, Alaska, 1971 by Philip Hyde. This photograph Philip Hyde made with the same tripod setup as his horizontal of "Mt. Denali, Wonder Lake." After he triggered the shutter on the Mt. Denali image, he swiveled the camera about one frame's width to the left and made this photograph. Edward Weston used to do this too. Actually, the two Philip Hyde Alaska photographs overlap. David Leland Hyde at age six was present for both on this rare sunny day in Denali National Park. This digital image and the prints made from it so far were from a flatbed Creo scan of a dye transfer print. You would think that scanning the print directly would cause the scan to match the dye transfer print. However, this image took more photoshop work to match the color balance, contrast and other qualities, particularly the sharpness of the original print than did "Mt. Denali, Wonder Lake, Alaska," which we drum scanned from a transparency. Recently we made a drum scan of the original transparency of the photograph above, "Mt. Brooks, Brooks Range, Alaska." The resulting file will help assure that future large archival fine art digital prints of this photograph will maintain Philip Hyde's high standards of sharpness, detail and color fidelity.

(To see the photograph full size, Click Here.)

(To see “Mt. Denali, Wonder Lake (Horizontal)” full size Click Here.)

(To see “Mt. Denali, Reflection Pond (Vertical)” full size Click Here.)

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: How does your dye transfer printing relate to your primary objective of portraying nature?

PHILIP HYDE: I have always wanted to interpret and express the beauty of what I see in nature. My major objective is producing a print that, as Ansel Adams says, carries out the score of the negative. So I orchestrate the dye transfer process to produce a print that conveys the colors and beauty of the original transparencies. Sometimes getting everything just right can be very time-consuming.

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: Are you ever tempted to go back out into the field and let a custom lab do the darkroom work for you?

PHILIP HYDE: No…it would be very hard for me to sell a print made by a lab as my own work. That’s really why I’m doing dye transfer printing, because I can carry the process all the way from start to finish. I make the print the way I want. Also, there’s a cost factor. A single dye transfer print from a custom lab costs $200 and up.

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: You mentioned before that the longevity of the dye transfer process appealed to you. How long do you expect your prints to last?

PHILIP HYDE: Well, that’s hard to say; hundreds of years I’d hope. The nice thing about dye transfer is that not only is the final color image quite stable, but the intermediate films, the separations, which contain all the color information, are actually black and white. So a basic record of the color image exists on black and white film, which, if archivally processed and stored, can last for thousands of years. That’s more than permanent enough for me. Another reason I’m into making dye transfers of my transparencies is that I have to send out my originals for reproduction in books and magazines, and they are often returned after reproduction with thumbprints or dirt all over them. If I’ve made dye transfer separations beforehand, I’m protected.

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: How did you first get interested in photography?

PHILIP HYDE: When I was 16, I went backpacking in the Sierra with the Scouts. I took a folding Kodak with me, and I got hooked on it. I guess it’s just like falling in love with anything. When I sent the films to the druggist, I thought the results were completely inadequate, so at age 17, I set up a darkroom and started working. Though I now work in color, most of my early work was black and white.

“Imogen Cunningham is a wonderful example—she just kept on being a photographer until she faded away.”

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: Over the years, you’ve collaborated with the Sierra Club to produce books that have been instrumental in saving wildernesses, books like Slickrock, about the southwestern Canyonlands, and Alaska: The Great Land. How did you first become involved with the Sierra Club?

PHILIP HYDE:  When I returned to San Francisco from the service in 1946, I enrolled in Ansel Adams’ new photography program at the California School of Fine Arts now the San Francisco Art Institute. I became interested in what the Sierra Club was doing at that time, so Ansel introduced me to Dave Brower (then Sierra Club Executive Director), and that was the beginning of a life-long relationship.

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: Do you ever think of retiring from photography?

PHILIP HYDE: I can’t think of what I’d retire from, or for, or to. It disturbs me to slow down when there’s so much more to be done. Imogen Cunningham is a wonderful example—she just kept on being a photographer until she faded away. That’s a great way to go.

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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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Philip Hyde At Home In The Wilds 1

June 17th, 2010

Darkroom Photography Magazine: Masters of the Darkroom Series Presents Part One Of An Interview With Philip Hyde By Merry Selk Blodgett

At Home In The Wilds

One of this century’s premier interpreters of the American wilderness, Philip Hyde has carried his 4X5 to places no camera had been before. Famous for Sierra Club books like Island In Time and The Last Redwoods, Philip Hyde is also a dedicated darkroom “do-it-yourselfer” who uses the complex and beautiful dye transfer process to make color prints. (See the blog posts, “The Legend Of Dye Transfer Printing 1,” and “The Legend of Dye Transfer Printing 2.”) Together with his wife and son, Philip Hyde lives far up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, in a house he built himself…

“When I first chose photography, I knew I was choosing the pleasures of creativity over the consolations of wealth.”

Virginia Creeper, Northern Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, 1977 by Philip Hyde. This photograph made at the home of the artist, became one of his signature images, though it is not in a pure sense a landscape photograph, as it depicts a domesticated vine on the wall of his house. The photograph appeared on more magazine covers than any other Philip Hyde image, starting with the now defunct Darkroom Photography magazine in 1980. Records are incomplete but some other covers included the Audubon Nature Calendar 1986, Scribner's Group Catalog 1986, Photo-Design Magazine 1985, a poster by James Randklev 1986, New York Life Calendar 1987, Fine Print Custom Photo Lab Catalog 1987 and a number of other company catalogs and brochures. Ardis Hyde originally planted the Virginia Creeper. She was locally well-known in Plumas County for her work with the Audubon Society, for organic gardening and because she gave Virginia Creeper starts to many people. Virginia Creeper can be seen growing all over the Feather River country partly due to the gifts of Ardis Hyde.

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: It’s very beautiful up here in the mountains; the view from this window could be a Sierra Club calendar. But you’re also very far from any large towns, not to mention cities. Do you ever feel isolated up here?

PHILIP HYDE: I don’t think it’s isolation, I think it’s insulation. We’re insulated from a lot of urban influences that I’m not all that interested in. Don’t get me wrong…I like people. I’m very involved in the photographic workshops I’ve been doing. But I guess I like people best in small quantities. For me, the urban environment is too much of a man-made kind of thing. What’s most important to me is to be able to look out the window and see the changes of the seasons, or the rain pouring down, or the stars at night.

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: You’ve got a reputation as one of the top nature photographers in the country. Has your photography made you financially successful?

PHILIP HYDE: I’m not really trying to play the money game. Photography has provided a living, not a bad living at all. But when I left the city in 1959 to come up here, I knew that I was leaving behind the opportunity to make lots of money. I think that when I first chose photography, I knew I was choosing the pleasures of creativity over the consolations of wealth.

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: What is your personal definition of success?

PHILIP HYDE: I define success for myself in terms of my lifestyle. Success is freedom and opportunity to do what I want to do. I would say I’m a success in that respect. But some people seem to think that once you’re successful, you can just coast from then on. That’s certainly not true for me; I have to keep working hard, which is a good thing, or I might sit back on the oars and float downstream.

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: Anyone who makes his own dye transfer color prints certainly isn’t resting on his oars. Frankly, I was surprised to discover that someone as closely associated with outdoor color work as yourself would be spending so much time indoors. Dye transfer color printing is notoriously difficult and time-consuming; it’s usually done only in specially-equipped labs. What made you decide to tackle such a formidable process?

PHILIP HYDE: The beauty of a well-made dye transfer print, for one thing. It’s permanence, for another. I don’t know, maybe it’s lunacy. Or maybe it’s self-punishment and that’s part of my philosophy too. I think that you don’t get something for nothing in this world, and that perhaps struggling for it is a good thing. I’m saying that somewhat facetiously, but I’m not joking. I think there are a lot of aspects of photography now that are so automatic and so easy, and I think that explains the fact that there isn’t an awful lot that’s significant, from a long-term standpoint, being produced.

“Success is freedom and opportunity to do what I want to do.”

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: I take it you’re not partial to motorized, auto-everything 35mm SLRs.

PHILIP HYDE: Well, do you know that old saw about the bunch of monkeys? If you set a bunch of monkeys up at typewriters eventually they would end up typing the Encyclopedia Britannica. That’s a lot of nonsense really, but it’s certainly true that if you run enough film through a camera, sooner or later you’re going to make a significant image. I think an awful lot of people are using 35mm that way. On the other hand, there definitely are people whose work is suited to 35mm…people who can exploit the freedom and flexibility of that format.

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: But you’d rather carry around a 4X5 camera and 30 pounds of gear as you hike through the wilderness.

PHILIP HYDE: Yes.

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: Why?

PHILIP HYDE: For one thing, it would be very hard for me to make high-quality large dye transfer prints from 35mm originals. But deeper than that, I like the 4X5 format because it disciplines you to see carefully. By the time you’ve made the exposure, you are aware of little things you wouldn’t notice in a 35mm viewer. And it’s a discipline in not being profligate with materials; when you’re carrying 30 pounds on your back and have a limited supply of film, you look at everything very critically. You’re less apt to bang away and ask questions later.

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: Let’s return to your current work with the dye transfer color printing process. How long have you been doing it, and how did you get started?

PHILIP HYDE: I began dye transfer printing in 1974. I had been mulling it over for a few years before; my photographer friend Dennis Brokaw tipped the scales when he said he would help me begin. I can still remember the first dye transfer print I made. I was so excited, after years of seeing bad color prints made from my transparencies.

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: Doesn’t the process require a lot of skill and care on your part?

PHILIP HYDE: I suppose so, if you define skill as a reasonably precise manipulation of the material, and having your head together enough so that you do all the intermediate steps in the right order. Dye transfer is a rather complex process, especially when your originals are transparencies, as mine are. But there’s one nice compensation for all the complexity; there are a tremendous number of adjustments and controls at each step of the process, so you can alter the color balance, intensity of colors, and contrast along the way. Even after five years, I haven’t been able to get into all the refinements of the process.

DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY: How does your dye transfer printing relate to your primary objective of portraying nature?

PHILIP HYDE: I have always wanted to interpret and express the beauty of what I see in nature. My major objective is…

CONTINUED IN THE UPCOMING BLOG POST, “Philip Hyde At Home In The Wilds 2.”

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The Legend Of Dye Transfer Printing, Interrupted 2

May 31st, 2010

CONTINUED FROM THE BLOG POST, “The Legend of Dye Transfer Printing, Interrupted 1”

Darkroom Photography Magazine and Dye Transfer

Aspens, Delores River Canyon, San Juan Rockies, Colorado, 1979 by Philip Hyde. One of the photographs featured in the "Images of the Southwest" dye transfer portfolio."

(To see the photograph full screen Click Here)

The now defunct Darkroom Photography Magazine, published Philip Hyde’s “Virginia Creeper, Northern Sierra Nevada, California” on the cover of the March/April 1980 issue. “Virginia Creeper” made more magazine covers than any other Philip Hyde photograph, but Darkroom Photography Magazine also ran an in-depth feature article with the cover photograph. Merry Selk Blodgett of Darkroom Photography Magazine interviewed Philip Hyde about his dye transfer printing process. See the blog post, “Philip Hyde At Home In The Wilds 1.”

The article titled, “At Home In the Wilds” by Merry Selk Blodgett included a sidebar about dye transfer printing that makes a good introduction to the rest of the article, which will appear in a future blog post. Below is an excerpt from the Darkroom Photography Magazine sidebar:

What Dye Transfer Is All About

The color printing process Philip Hyde uses, dye transfer, is one of the finest (and most difficult) techniques currently available for producing a photographic color print. Color quality and tonality are excellent, the final image is relatively immune to degradation over time, and the process offers a degree of control over contrast and color unmatched by other techniques. To make a dye transfer print from one of his 4X5 transparencies, Philip Hyde first makes three black and white separation negatives by contact printing the transparency onto panchromatic sheet film. One separation is made with a blue filter over the light source, another with a red filter and the third with a green filter. Together these three separations comprise a complete “record” of the original color image.

The three separate matrices, one for each color are eventually dunked in their respective color dyes and then rolled carefully onto the paper using a positive register of rectangular-shaped pins that fit precisely into rectangular holes punched into the matrices for a perfect alignment of the three separate color versions of the final single print. Here is Philip Hyde’s complete statement of the process from start to finish as written in his “Images of the Southwest” Dye Transfer Portfolio Introduction:

The following is Dad’s description of his dye transfer printing process from his dye transfer portfolio packaged by Lumina, Palo Alto, California in 1982 called, “Images of the Southwest: Twelve Original Photographic Prints by Philip Hyde.” The plan was to print 50 portfolios but only 31 were made, which still was a huge production considering it adds up to 612 handmade prints.

A Brief Description of the Dye Transfer Color Print Process by Philip Hyde

The prints in this portfolio were made from 4X5 Ektachrome original transparencies by the dye transfer process.

To begin, a set of three separation negatives are made from the original by contact printing onto a black and white film. Exposed to red, green,  and blue light respectively then processed and dried, these three negatives record and translate the color information from the original into silver negative densities.

Film positives are then made from the separations, enlarging them to the finished print size on a special matrix film capable of absorbing and transporting dyes in the precise degree required for the differing portion of the final print. These matrix print films correspond to plates used for printing reproductions in the ink process.

After processing and drying, the three matrices are immersed in their respective dye solutions: cyan, magenta and yellow. The printing paper which is coated with a non-silver-sensitive emulsion to absorb dye, is mordanted then sqeegeed into position on the register printing board. Each matrix in succession is then removed from its dye bath, rinses, then placed on the register pins of the board and rolled into contact with the printing paper, remaining in contact for 3 to 6 minutes depending on dye color. It is then stripped off, washed in warm water and returned to its dye bath to repeat the cycle. When the third matrix has been rolled and removed, the full-color image is revealed on the printing paper, which is then dried, trimmed, and mounted, as in the Portfolio.

This portfolio is issued in a limited edition of 60 copies, of which 50 are for sale. Copyright Philip Hyde 1982.

Archival Statement

All of the prints in this portfolio were made by Philip Hyde in his darkroom, to exacting standards for color, quality, and longevity. They are dry-mounted to acid-free, 100% rag Museum Board, and overlaid with cut-out mats of the same Museum Board attached with acid-free tape. 100% acid-free rag paper interleaves are used to protect the print surfaces. With proper care, the prints should last  a long time, but as with most materials made by man or nature, they should not be subjected to direct sunlight, or high intensity fluorescent lighting.

A future blog post will describe the interesting and challenging process of trial and error, with good help from expert friends, through which Philip Hyde learned dye transfer printing. Also in a future blog post the Darkroom Photography Magazine Interview about Philip Hyde’s printing processes and his life living in the northern Sierra Nevada and travels to photograph mountain scenes and southwestern desert landscapes, see the blog post, “Philip Hyde At Home In the Wilds 1.”

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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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Images Of The Southwest Portfolio Forward By Philip Hyde

April 26th, 2010

Plateau Edge, Southern Utah, 1974 by Philip Hyde. One of 12 photographs printed as dye transfer prints in the "Images of The Southwest" portfolio. "Images of the Southwest" was intended as a limited edition of 50, which in itself was a collosal undertaking. Making 50 X 12 = 600 dye transfer prints by hand was no easy task. However, at some point there was trouble with the distributor. Philip Hyde took the sale of the portfolio back over after 31 sold and no more portfolios were distributed or made thereafter.

Images of the Southwest: Forward by Philip Hyde

The Southwest is a very special place for me. Over the many years of travel and photography in the region, there has been a certain evolution in my work from communication of a sense of place, to a search for the essences that express the whole region’s uniqueness.

My method of working has long been a kind of passing through the country, hoping to make discoveries. I want to let the country speak to me without my imposing preconceptions on it. A slow pace is important in this. And, since I can be only a temporary visitor, walking and camping for a month or a season, I must keep going back. I can’t get enough of that warm color, sense enough of the remote wilderness that still lingers in places.

Here the Planet’s basic structure has been laid bare, as if to serve better the consummate artistry of erosion’s creative force, that is even now enlarging its catalog of supreme works.

At the extremes of the year in Summer or Winter, the country may retreat behind a screen of seeming hostility, as with the heat haze of Summer noons, or the bone-chilling cold of blizzard winds that hurl sparse snowflakes across the unbroken spaces. But even then, the country invites you to come again, in Spring or Fall when these ephemeral seasons supply the brightest accents of nature’s scene. This elusive quality is underlined by an increasing awareness that the land’s vulnerable beauty is fading under the onslaught of development.

Emerson wrote: “A nobler want of man is served by nature, namely the love of beauty…. But beauty in nature is not ultimate. It is the herald of inward and eternal beauty.”

Will the “inward and eternal beauty” thus heralded develop in men soon enough to preserve its well-springs? The question evokes a feeling of urgency in what was once called “the land of room enough and time enough.”

SEE ALSO THE BLOG POST, “The Legend of Dye Transfer Printing, Interrupted 1.”

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The Legend Of Dye Transfer Printing, Interrupted 1

April 12th, 2010

Misty Morning, Indian Creek, Northern Sierra Nevada, California, 1983 by Philip Hyde. The original color transparency went missing. As a result until 2008, this image had not been printed or published for over 20 years. With the digital age it can again be printed. The new large digital file came from a scan on a Creo CCD Flatbed Scanner of a Philip Hyde original dye transfer print. Most of the other photographs on the Philip Hyde Photography website are made from a drum scan of the original 4X5 color transparency, 4X5, 5X7 or 8X10 black and white negative, or a film duplicate of one of these.

(See the photograph full screen Click Here.)

The stuff of myth, legend and dreams, dye transfer print making helped bring color to the silver screen in 1922. Hollywood called it Technicolor and it resulted in the best and brightest color that films have ever offered. It was the most widely used motion picture technology until 1952. “Everything else is a pale comparison,” said Brad Miller of Technicolor Labs in Grass Valley, California.

During the 1940s, Kodak released the process for still photography print making. It was the method taught in photography schools and the honored child of famous photographers such as William Eggleston, Ernst Haas, Ctein, Eve Arnold, Beaumont Newhall, Galen Rowell, Cole Weston, John Ward, Eliot Porter, Philip Hyde and others. Then in 1994, Kodak abandoned the process and the many photographers, famous or not who were producing the prints. There was outcry across the land, even the world.

I remember my father, fine art landscape photographer Philip Hyde, regularly being mad at Kodak about something. Kodak notoriously favored the mass market and made decisions from a strictly bottom line numbers perspective that often hurt the professional photographer to make the hobbyist happy. Dad used to rail about corporate greed and breaches of trust with those who like him, were working full-time, Kodak’s loyal volume supply buyers. However, nothing compared with the day the music died first in 1991 with discontinuation of the matrix film, then in 1994 with Kodak discontinuing the remaining dye transfer materials. After the dust settled, I don’t think Dad ever recovered completely from the loss of dye transfer print making. He bought up supplies like many others but refused to spend his life’s savings on large stock piles of materials at age 73. As it was, he gave what he had away to another dye transfer printer when he lost his eyesight in 1999-2000.

With these influences, the 1990s marked a change of direction in Dad’s life. After pinching every penny and saving all of them he could, he had invested small sums in the stock market for years. His modest stock portfolio had done so well that by 1994, he had become an avid reader of the Wall Street Journal and Barron’s. He was a highly conservative, buy and hold, blue chip stock investor. It had been working for him quite well and he made far more in the stock market than he ever did in photography.

He was still smarting from his crowning book achievement, Drylands: The Deserts of North America published in 1987, being remaindered, re-published in 1990 and remaindered a second time. He was disappointed because the accountants had taken over book publishing and if books sold more slowly they were remaindered. He seemed down about the influence of corporate decision makers on photography in general and he was not one to get down about anything. He experienced more demand for his time by environmental activist groups and organizations like the Museum of Northern Arizona and Ansel Adams Gallery asking him to do more workshops. The workshops rekindled his photography spark some, but for a few years he went into semi-retirement. Dye transfer and desert landscapes were the two reasons Dad converted to color in a long, gradual process during the decade of the 1970s. More on that in another blog post and in my book. He did in time begin printing again in earnest. He made beautiful color Cibachrome prints, but it was never the same as dye transfer print making. What was it about this elusive process that captured the minds of famous photographers and darkroom techies alike?

One of the photographers famous for his dye transfer prints is Ctein, one of a few still making dye transfer prints today. He wrote on his website:

Dye transfer prints are simply without peer. They have a richness, depth, and fidelity unmatched by any other kind of photographic print. They can show extraordinary subtlety of tone and hue, combined with a brightness range of 500:1 from blackest black to whitest white. After 70 years, dye transfer printing has become a nearly-lost art…today only a few dozen people in the entire world still make dye transfer prints… Dye transfer printing is very time-consuming and expensive. Making the first 16″ x 20″ dye print from a negative costs me over $100 in materials and several days’ time. Dye transfer printing also demands extraordinary skill, understanding, and good artistic judgement… In 1991 Kodak discontinued a special film called Pan Matrix Film which I need to make prints directly from color negatives. In 1994 Kodak abruptly and without warning ceased production of Matrix Film (used for printing from separations) and all other dye transfer materials… As an artist, I couldn’t stand the idea of spending the rest of my life thinking, “Gee that’s a pretty nice print… it would have been so much lovelier as a dye transfer.” I mortgaged myself to the hilt and packed a large amount of this unique film in a deep freeze… I stockpiled enough chemicals, dye and paper to allow me to continue printing. I went deeply in debt, but I can continue creating my art for at least several more years. Those few of us still making dye transfer prints survive on such hoarded supplies. Kodak’s decision to kill dye transfer constitutes an artistic loss of the highest order.

Landscape photographer Charles Cramer described his experience on his website:

When I started making color prints in the late 70s, things were fairly primitive, but there was one process with a mythical reputation that offered tremendous control—dye transfer. I had no idea how all-consuming making dye transfer prints would be. To create one print required the precise exposure and development of approximately twelve sheets of film. The colors are literally disassembled into B&W, and then reassembled in a process akin to silk-screening. With all the steps involved, it offered tremendous control—but also the possibility for things to go terribly wrong. I labored mightily for more than fifteen years with dye transfer. When all the planets aligned, a beautiful print could emerge. But you didn’t know how it would look until the final step of “rolling” out a print. I started making dye transfer prints in 1981. In 1994, Kodak, the only supplier of dye transfer materials, announced they had ceased production. Any remaining inventory was divided up amongst existing customers. I scraped together as much as I could afford to get a decent stockpile… By the time I started in dye transfer, most everyone else had quit. The biggest obstacle was getting good information. There was very little in the literature, and I tried to collect everything I could. There are so many steps to making a print—so many variables— combined with the fact that there’s no feedback until you finally make the print, that it’s hard to isolate exactly what does what.

Charles Cramer taught dye transfer printing for the Ansel Adams Gallery Workshops starting in 1987. He teaches at the Ansel Adams Gallery to this day. Upcoming blog posts will describe how Philip Hyde learned dye transfer printing and will include Philip Hyde’s description of the process, as well as my memories of him singing along to his big band jazz records as he printed.

CONTINUED IN THE BLOG POST, “The Legend of Dye Transfer Printing, Interrupted 2“

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Photography’s Golden Era 2

February 4th, 2010

Photography’s Golden Era 2

(CONTINUED FROM BLOG POST, “Photography’s Golden Era 1“)

Are We Currently in Another Golden Era of Photography?

HEY, THAT’S NOT ART!!!!!

Volcan From South of Colima, Mexico, 1995, by Philip Hyde. A "contemporary" Philip Hyde photograph, the last time he traveled in Mexico before he lost his eyesight. This less landscape and more landscaping image will not be printed for some time. It will eventually be part of the Mexico Portfolio, that contains many architectural and travel style photographs with a more "post-modern" feel.

After the first post on Photography’s Golden Era, one of the responses has been rolling around in the back 40 of my vacuous mind. A photographer named Derrick Birdsall of “My Sight Picture” said he enjoyed the “walk back in time,” and when I asked him what else he would like to see covered on the subject he wrote: “David, as a historian (and neophyte photographer) myself, I enjoyed the perspective you shared. Gotta know where you’ve been if you want to know where you’re going. As for future topics… why would you say that the “Golden Era” was in the past? Some could argue that with all of the technology more or less readily available and affordable today that we are currently in a Golden Era today?? I’m not arguing the point, but I’d be interested to hear your views on the matter.”

Interesting questions, and put to me in an open-ended, ‘let’s see what you think’ manner. I couldn’t resist. I decided to offer my take on it here. It would be fun to hear what others think too. Are we in a new Golden Era, or in the pits of the cherries now? Here’s my response, edited again…

Hi Derrick,
Great questions. I did not label the period from 1947 to 1956 at the California School of Fine Arts when Minor White was lead instructor and the time just before that in the San Francisco Bay Area when Group f.64 formed. Photo historians and curators including Ken and Victoria Ball in their forthcoming book, have called it the Golden Era because the energy, creativity, optimism and serious commitment of the G.I.s coming out of WW II and looking to get on with their lives, meshed with the gathering of the greatest teachers and innovators photography has ever seen. At a unique time when there had been no fine art photography before, it all came together in one place and brought forth photography that will endure “forever” if that is possible.

Definitely a point you raise about the current day. On the internet synergy occurs, though at times it seems much less like a coming together of the greatest talents and more like dispersion in a million directions. I’m new to the forums, though my impression is that they are mainly a training ground for the accelerated honing of new photographer’s skills. Certainly the old pros are around in places too. Photography is changing faster than ever. The technology is allowing for just about anyone to make a good photograph now and then. However, does that define a Golden Era? The various directions will have to settle out a bit to find out.

Lorraine Anne Davis, in her Black and White Magazine column “Curator’s Corner” interviewed Lynne Warren, curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago for the April 2008 issue. Lynne Warren said, “I was getting pretty cynical about the emphasis on large-scale color work, often poorly executed—it just seemed all the rage. Too many artists seemed to think they could just pick up a digital camera and shoot, knowing nothing about photography. But I’ve seen a change. Younger photographers seem to be getting very serious about their craft, and realizing that if you want a photo to look a certain way, you had better be able to consciously achieve it rather than accepting whatever comes out of your digital camera.” A lot of excellent work is out there. However, forgive me for being blunt, and I certainly don’t think this is always the case, but there are too many sunsets, sunrises, contrived drama, over-saturated colors and people following formulas they read in somebody’s 17 quick tips.

My father, master landscape photographer Philip Hyde, often quoted Minor White who said sunsets are cliché. Both Minor White and Philip Hyde, and Ansel Adams for that matter, taught that photography is more of a Zen-like practice of stilling the mind, opening the eyes and seeing deeply. There isn’t anything quick about it. Also, Dad said that in order to photograph nature, it is necessary to understand something about the subject, to spend time out there away from the iPod, iPad, iPhone, IBM, IPO, ISP, IMF, IOU and IRS.

Another issue that Lynne Warren and Lorraine Anne Davis did not even touch is the effects of Photoshop on the medium. Will the transformations of photography through digital technologies ultimately improve the quality of the best art? Hard to say this soon. Ansel Adams’ silver prints, Philip Hyde’s dye transfer prints and Christopher Burkett’s Cibachrome prints have yet to be matched by anyone printing in digital. It will be interesting to see later if the beginning of the digital era will indeed be seen as a Golden Era. This may be a settling out era. It may bring about some kind of Renaissance, but has the Renaissance already started? Hmmm, we’ll see. Because many of the big scenes have been done, now many museums are collecting mainly quirky, bizarre, experimental stuff. It may be “Golden” or it may be merely the birth of what is essentially a new medium, searching to find itself.

Much of what I also see are various ways of changing photographs to look more like paintings or some other related visual art that is not straight photography, but is more like a reincarnation of the pictorialism that held photography back from becoming its own art form. Alfred Stieglitz in New York, and the members of Group f.64 in San Francisco, set photography free with Straight Photography. Lorraine Anne Davis is also a prominent appraiser with another column in Black and White Magazine called “What’s It Worth.” In a piece about the work of Edmund Teske, she wrote, “After photography broke from Pictorialism at the beginning of the 20th Century and embraced Modernism, it soon became stuck in the trap of Straight Photography.” Many people believe that the parameters of realism hold photography back, but everyone is free to create whatever they choose. If you paint over old photographs, you move into a different art form altogether, as with many of the new directions in digital. More power to them, but they are not what Ansel Adams and Edward Weston called “pure” photography and they are more experimental than “great” at this juncture, in my opinion.

So how do you feel about the current era? Is it a new Golden Age? Or the doom of everything grand? Take a gander, what will the future hold?

(CONTINUED IN BLOG POST, “Photography’s Golden Era 3“

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