I played hookey from work today and went to Carmel for a short day trip. I decided to leave the cameras at home, and just enjoy a nice day of sightseeing and visiting galleries.
First stop was Photography West.http://www.photographywest.com I spent over two hours going through prints, and drooling over the Weston and Adams prints.
One artist really stood out to me. It was Roman Loranc, who I believe was in Lenswork a while ago. His prints were beautiful. You could walk into them. I spent 45 minutes just looking at his stack of prints. Gorgeous.
Christopher Burkett had some great large format color prints there. The color was amazing. The salesperson told me that he does all his own printing and refuses to use any artificial light or filters on his camera. I have no idea how he gets the look he does without any trickery, but I'll take her word for it.
I asked to see some prints from Dan Burkholder (Digital Negative Guru). She was shocked that someone had actually asked to see them.
Last time I was at Photography West, they were pushing him as their next great artist, this time, she had to look through several file drawers until she found his work. Some of the images were nice, some looked too artificial, over sharp for a platinum print, or had what I would call bad dodging and burning (in photoshop). I wasn't nearly as impressed with seeing them as I was the first time. Not sure if it is because I now know what a really nice LF platinum print looks like, or my tastes have changed. The other thing about his body of work they have in stock. It didn't have any cohesive thread to it. Not sure if it was a good or bad thing, just different than the rest of the artists they represent.
The Huge Brett Westons were awesome, nuff said.
We had a short lunch at a small swiss cafe, food was cheap and tastey.
Next stop was the the Weston Gallery. They had about 8 EW prints on display in rather harsh lighting. Lots of glare on the glass. These were EW/CW prints, probably from the 70's I guess. The thing that struck me about them was the lack of care taken in mounting them. There was dry mount tissue sticking out from behind corners, dirty matts, etc. Very interesting! The prints themselves were of course gorgeous.
They also had four large portraits from Karsh. They were huge! Probably 20x24. I liked the Picaso one best. Beautiful prints, and of course awesome portraits.
The Adams prints they had were also really nice, but they had them all hanging above what is basically the magazine rack. Its funny when you go into a gallery and see an original Adams Hernandez NM hanging on the wall with a $20,000 (thats twenty thousand dollars!) price tag hanging two feet above a rack with B/W Magazine, and various paperback photo how to books. Kind of sad if you ask me. The sales person at Weston wasn't very helpful, she basically sat behind a desk, and took money from tourists buying postcards (she got $40 out of me )
All in all it was a great day. I was away from the office, and got to see some of my idols prints in person. I came home feeling luck for tw othings. 1) living driving distance from the mecca of west coast photography, and 2) that I was driving north on the 101. Southbound was backed up bumper to bumper for the 35 miles we were on it. hehe
Brian
ps, spell checker isnt working on this page on my computer, so please pardon any typos!
First stop was Photography West.http://www.photographywest.com I spent over two hours going through prints, and drooling over the Weston and Adams prints.
One artist really stood out to me. It was Roman Loranc, who I believe was in Lenswork a while ago. His prints were beautiful. You could walk into them. I spent 45 minutes just looking at his stack of prints. Gorgeous.
Christopher Burkett had some great large format color prints there. The color was amazing. The salesperson told me that he does all his own printing and refuses to use any artificial light or filters on his camera. I have no idea how he gets the look he does without any trickery, but I'll take her word for it.
I asked to see some prints from Dan Burkholder (Digital Negative Guru). She was shocked that someone had actually asked to see them.
Last time I was at Photography West, they were pushing him as their next great artist, this time, she had to look through several file drawers until she found his work. Some of the images were nice, some looked too artificial, over sharp for a platinum print, or had what I would call bad dodging and burning (in photoshop). I wasn't nearly as impressed with seeing them as I was the first time. Not sure if it is because I now know what a really nice LF platinum print looks like, or my tastes have changed. The other thing about his body of work they have in stock. It didn't have any cohesive thread to it. Not sure if it was a good or bad thing, just different than the rest of the artists they represent.The Huge Brett Westons were awesome, nuff said.
We had a short lunch at a small swiss cafe, food was cheap and tastey.
Next stop was the the Weston Gallery. They had about 8 EW prints on display in rather harsh lighting. Lots of glare on the glass. These were EW/CW prints, probably from the 70's I guess. The thing that struck me about them was the lack of care taken in mounting them. There was dry mount tissue sticking out from behind corners, dirty matts, etc. Very interesting! The prints themselves were of course gorgeous.
They also had four large portraits from Karsh. They were huge! Probably 20x24. I liked the Picaso one best. Beautiful prints, and of course awesome portraits.
The Adams prints they had were also really nice, but they had them all hanging above what is basically the magazine rack. Its funny when you go into a gallery and see an original Adams Hernandez NM hanging on the wall with a $20,000 (thats twenty thousand dollars!) price tag hanging two feet above a rack with B/W Magazine, and various paperback photo how to books. Kind of sad if you ask me. The sales person at Weston wasn't very helpful, she basically sat behind a desk, and took money from tourists buying postcards (she got $40 out of me
)All in all it was a great day. I was away from the office, and got to see some of my idols prints in person. I came home feeling luck for tw othings. 1) living driving distance from the mecca of west coast photography, and 2) that I was driving north on the 101. Southbound was backed up bumper to bumper for the 35 miles we were on it. hehe
Brian
ps, spell checker isnt working on this page on my computer, so please pardon any typos!
