Night and Color
Photographic Portraits of the Urban Landscape              

May 2005

     Since I first picked up a camera forty years ago, I have been enthralled with the way film captures light.  The camera records the scene over time and collects light the eye cannot.  The result can be arresting.
     The first of these images, "Boston" was taken twenty-two years ago and the most recent "The Side Door" just this January.  Searching for the right combination of color and light is always an interesting exercise.  Diagonals, converging lines, and streaks of movement attract my attention.
     Technically, the steps are a little counter-intuitive.  I use Slow film rather than fast, small apertures rather than large and long exposures of up to a minute to grab just enough light for the desired effect.  The results after processing are always surprising, often worthless and occasionally very rewarding.
     All of these images were exposed on film and scanned with a high-resolution scanner then printed onto canvas.  I have always been frustrated by the standard mode of photographic display of moderate sized images behind glass.  The new technology may lack the charm of traditional darkroom technique but produces a result that is quite different.
     How a scene is captured and reproduced is of little interest to me.  The resulting image and its impact on the viewer is my primary concern.  Technical aspects of the process are simply a means to an end and nothing else.  The engineering of both the archival canvas and inks has improved to the point that they promise longevity for these prints (commonly called giclee's) as long as two hundred years.

Michael Shewmaker