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PHOTOS

Half Frame Notes

In the early 90's I found some negatives in my deceased uncle's belongings where the negative frame was vertical NOT horizontal. I then went through his collection of cameras and found an Olympus Pen E, which many call a "half frame" camera. This camera shoots a half of a 35 mm frame, and so in a 36 exposure roll of film, you have 72 exposures. I loaded the camera with color film, shot an entire roll, and mailed it to the "cheap-o" film developers to see what I would have. They printed two images on one print. Unexpected compositions were found by having two frames or photographs printed as one print. I got really into this process and I learned from my previous roll what to do and not to do to get more evenly exposed prints, and saturated colors. I stepped up the quality over the years and went to better processors and printers. Being that the camera is small and including the fact that the more primitive models have a very simple focus system, (you adjust between three icons: "portrait", "group photo of people" and "mountain"), it created a casual mode of photographing. This made me free to shoot without looking through the lens and snapping objects and things I enjoyed instantly without thinking about it too much. These objects I happily captured on film, and did not burden myself with physically collecting those things (which I considered).

Many people wondered if I edit in Photoshop the images together as a pair, but I do not. It is a challenge for me to find the pairings in my surroundings as I galavant through my journeys. Basically, they are shot and edited "in camera", so, the image on the left was shot moments before the image on the right. I eventually became frustrated with the advent of digital printing, where pixilation would occur in blurry parts of the image (of which I intentionally would shoot blurry on occasion) and taught myself how to print color negatives while at a residency at 96 Gillespie Gallery in London which was run by my friends Pat Graham and Melanie Standage. My teachers of color printing were the owners of the gallery, Melanie Standage and Pat Graham. I printed a series of photos from Alabama in both 8"X10" and 16"X20".

I still enjoy actually having my favorite ‘one hour photo' print 4" X 6" photos. The size is more delectable and the colors remain lush. I also like the way the black wood frames I designed for these photos stand alone on a shelf, or can me hung on a wall by themselves or in contrast to one of my larger black and white silver gelatin prints. So, I still print them 4" X 6" most of the time. The color deckle edged postcards that you see on this website are half frame photographs made into mass produced postcards. My collection of images houses thousands of typographical interests, colors, grafitti, objects, flowers, cars and found objects in hot pavement and sometimes people. For additional half frame images please look at the Deckle Edged Postcards on this site

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