Photography, 1978 - 1980
When I look back at my undergraduate work in photography, I see that my visual orientation hasn’t changed much.
Cameras in those days were a struggle for me. I could manage only a few of the variables. I carried a tripod and a grey card wherever I went. A student had to be frugal when shooting film. I spent hours in the darkroom, only able to print the negatives that had a useful tonal range. The images couldn’t be enlarged without getting grainy, and they couldn’t compete with the colour and scale of painting. Although I loved the notational process of photography, I didn’t feel like my images would ever look much different than anyone else’s. That seemed to matter then (I don’t care about that so much now). But back then it felt like I was going to have to choose painting if things were going to move forward.
All square formats were taken with a Mamiya C220 twin lens reflex. Rectangular formats were taken with a Minolta Hi-Matic 7 fixed lens rangefinder.
