From Analogue to Digital:
A Personal Photographic Journey
Fine Art
I have been a fine art photographer since I first held a camera in the mid-sixties. I have worked consistently over the years with a steady progression with my explorations of expanding photographic space, not only with my inventions but with finding ways to combine and compose images digitally to further visual communication.
There are eleven series,
Early Color Work in the 1960s
- The Total Environment Spherical Series
- The Two Page Spreads
- The Southwest Series
- Digital Photographic beginnings
- The New York Series
- The Iconography Series
- The Wall Series
- The Prism Series
- The Colorist Series
- The Visual Metaphor series
- The Macro Perception series
All of my photographs are available in the new digital form as LUDF or Limited Use Digital Files. These are full resolution files that can be used by a customer to produce their own prints at whatever size or strata of their choice. The limitations are that the subject matter and design components are immutable or unchangeable as these are protected by copyright.
As a fine Art Digital photographer, I no longer store and produce prints of my work. I now market all of my work as Limited Use Digital Files (LUDF) for which customers may use to produce whatever size, media or quantity of their choosing.
Any image or images that you find within my various series that are not listed on my Sales Page can be made available for sale as LUDF files.
Please feel free to contact me if this is the case at dpwillis1@verizon.net
.
Early Color Work in the1960s
In the 1960s Most fine art photographers worked with archival black and white silver pints. This was due to the ephemeral nature of color prints of that time. Artists who wanted to employ color in their work had to use cumbersome dye transfer, silk screen or offset printing processes.
Desiring to explore color in my imagery, I turned to the use of Kodachrome slides. The output of this work was the production of multi-media projected performances. Due to the fact that these shows cannot be reproduced, I have digitally scanned the slides and have re-formulated these shows as equivalent "Grids" as below.
NEW FEATURED PORTFOLIOS
THE EARLY SPHERICALS 1970-1990
In the early seventies, I became curious about how to photograph a total vertical and horizontal environment and make a two-dimensional print with this information. There were no cameras available at that time to accomplish this. I experimented with several of pin-hole cameras in order to do this and constructed a six-panel camera. Each four inch by 10-inch panel contained tri-X films for which I contact printed and mounted together on a single board.
For my early work using this camera I was awarded a New York State grant and continued its use for over twenty years gathering images from multiple environments and varied subject matters.
I have recently completed digitizing the analogue tri-X negatives and have produced four portfolios from this early work and am providing these to museums, galleries, collectors, educators and commercial art consultants as digitized files for their use to produce prints, use for web pages or email purposes. These digitized files are called LUDF or limited use digital files which allow a customer to use the images but are not allowed to alter them as they are copywrite protected.
I
I am currently working on the installation of these portfolios as slide shows on this web site. As a fine-art digital photographer I no longer make prints of my work but only provide these as LUDF digital files for a customer's use.
The Portfolios are titled "The Marks of Man", "The Southwest", "The Trees", "The "The Landscapes".
These 10-inch by 24-inch prints would be ideal for installing singly in corridors or in stacked combinations in rooms.
These new digitized pinhole portfolos are now available for purchase on the Fine Art Photograpic Sales page on this Web Site.
PINHOLE CAMERA PORTFOLIO, THE MARKS OF MAN
- All
- The Marks of Man
- The Southwest
PINHOLE CAMERA PORTFOLIO, THE Southwest
- All
- The Southwest
- The Marks of Man
PINHOLE CAMERA PORTFOLIO, tHE tREES
My photos
- All
- The Trees
PINHOLE CAMERA PORTFOLIO, THE LANDSCAPES
My photos
- All
- THE LANDSCAPES
THE TWO PAGE SPREADS 1970s-1980s
At the same time, when I was working with my spherical camera, I continued to take photographs with my 35mm analog cameras. I compiled an extensive archive of color negatives of many subject matters at many locations. When editing this work, I recognized certain repeating forms and related subject matter in the archive.
In California, my first influential teacher of photography was John Upton. John had been a close follower of Minor White, and he presented to his class one of Minor White’s ideas that every photographer repeats in their work “core forms” of which they are often unaware.
So as I went through this editing process, I found many images in my work that seemed to confirm John Upton’s and Minor White’s theories.
The other concept that was interesting to me was the opportunity to make use of visual metaphoric relationships. ‘Visual metaphors’ was one of the repeated lessons taught by Nathan Lyons, my teacher at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York.
He discussed how these are used in commercial work and that they should not be ignored by fine art photographers. The two-page spreads contain a combination of discovering “core forms” and to produce visual metaphorical depictions.
This exploration was an important step in my work and led me to seek out other ways to create photographic compositions.
THE SOUTH WEST SERIES 1980s-1990s
For many years I have visited the South West to take photographs. The South West is one of the most exciting regions in which to work. The area has the influences of Native American, Spanish and Anglo cultures mingling together and residing in beautiful landscapes of mountains, mesas, river gorges, and deserts.
As a photographer, I was conscious of the importance of gathering what I call the basic “elements” of the area. However, I found it exceedingly difficult to find viewpoints from which to take a camera to combine any more than a few of the elements from any one vantage point.
Painters, on the other hand, are entirely free to compose on their canvases these same elements in any combination they want.
The solution for me was to resort to the powerful digital compositing technologies that were just becoming available to photographers.
From my archive of color negatives, I scanned these images and loaded them into my computer and then had the ability to create “virtual landscapes” as well as other compositions that I have labeled “planoscapes”.
Digital Photographic Beginnings 1993
My early analogue photographic work dealt with explorations in expanding the photographic canvas and in building visual metaphoric relationships with design and subject matters with my two-page spreads. Realizing that I needed better tools for facilitating these concepts, I began my first work with digital photographic processes as below. This work with digital photographic processes continues to the present.
The New York Series 2006 - TO PRESENT
In 2006 having exhausted going through my archive of analog photographs, I purchased a digital camera. Now I began working and shooting with “purpose” or “intent”.
Living in New York, I had the luxury of starting with an idea or concept for a composition and would go out and gather the necessary images. This is an entirely different way to work.
The Iconography Series 2006 TO THE PRESENT
These types of images lend themselves to be created as what I call “planoscapes”. The basis for their design structures is more about relationships and are not dependant on creating a real or virtual landscape, although in some cases,
there can be some elements of a landscape contained. I have put some of the iconographic images as historical comparatives and other times just as themselves. Some of these images were composed just because it was fun.
The Visual Metaphoric Series
The result of the placement of disparate subject matters into compositions creates perceptions that are not necessarily related to verbal syntax.
This is a powerful tool that seems to be currently little understood
I have explored this concept in varied ways over my fine-art photographic career and even in one professional situation used the concept of placing an egg in images of personal and public disasters to convey the idea that the insurance client handled all of these cases effectively
COMBINING MACRO PHOTOGRAPHED SUBJECTS WITH STANDARED AND PANORAMIC COMPOSITIONS CREATES THE OPPORTUNITY TO EXPAND PERSPECTIVES IN A THIRD DIMENSION
I HAVE RECENTLY EXPANDED UPON THIS METHOD TO ENHANCE MY INTEREST IN VISUAL METAPHORIC RELATIONSHIPS
THE MACRO PERSPECTIVE SERIES
The Wall Series - 2019 TO THE PRESENT
These large aluminum prints are designed to hang directly on your wall and command a prominent presence in your room. Frames are not necessary because they have hangers attached.
The Prism Series 2019 TO THE PRESENT
These images were produced using my MirrorsPod invention and utilize the multiple prismatic designs and shapes that are produced by this device. Working with prismatic imagery is in many ways the complete reverse of working with panoramas and is another important way to explore photographic space.
These large aluminum prints are designed to hang directly on your wall and command a prominent presence in your room. Frames are not necessary because they have hangers attached.
The Colorist Series 2022 TO THE PRESENT
The Colorist series are digital compositions employing color as a primary emotional element. Images in this series overlap with many in previous series but are more heavily influenced by color as the compositional element.
