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PDN:
It's been said that you are totally open when it comes to your darkroom processes.
Can you talk technique for a moment?
UELSMANN:
The techniques that I use are essentially quite old. It's just a multiple printing technique in the darkroom where you have this blank piece of paper and you can keep part of it from being exposed when you're printing it. You can then print something else on that side, on the other side or in the foreground or background. That's the easiest thing. In these pictures, there's one where a building becomes a tree, a tree becomes a building...well, in one enlarger, I would have the building and in one enlarger, I'd have the tree and I'm simply blending them together by moving my paper from one enlarger to the other. And I'd block below the enlarger lens, which causes a very soft edge to occur where one image fades into the other. Over the years, I've developed other techniques in the darkroom, but it's like trying to tell someone how to tie your shoe without showing them.
PDN: Do you ever use the computer as a tool in your image-making process?
"To
me, a camera is a license to explore."
– Jerry Uelsmann |
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UELSMANN:
One thing that I have learned over the years is that my creative process is really integrated with the traditional darkroom process. I look at contact sheets; I have coffee, put them together, and go into the darkroom. There's something about the ambiance to this dimly lit place that greatly appeals to me. I always listen to the blues in the darkroom, the water's running. . .it's just a magical place for me. If I do any kind of meditation or if I have a religion, I suppose its photography. I've done a few projects using the computer, and I've been very pleased with those results, but overall my place is in the darkroom.
PDN: You are known, after all, for the silver print...but what about the
actual act of taking a photograph? How much of that do you do now, as opposed
to just building new images from your library of existing work?
Untitled,
2001 |
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UELSMANN:
To me the camera is a license to explore. It's a glorious instrument. Without a camera, if you stop to look at a crack in the sidewalk, people question that. But as long as you have a camera, there's a kind of heightened perceptual awareness that is very much a part of my consciousness. So I still shoot quite frequently. I also have the freedom, at that point, in not trying to complete the image. On the other hand, I also I have this huge supply of pictures that I've made over the years. So, if I want clouds, I can find a lot of different clouds I can put in to a new image. Sometimes I'll set things up in the studio, like the image of the chairs in a circle on the beach with a lone figure in the background. Maggie bought a bunch of these little toy chairs on E-Bay one day and I happened to notice them sitting in her studio area. I thought they looked like real chairs so I just set them up on the white board and photographed them, not knowing where I would use them. But because they were on a white background, it was relatively easy for me to print them on to my image of the beach. I also have some images where a floating boat occurs. And that's just simply a little toy boat that I've put on a piece of Plexiglas and then photographed.
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