My sole focus as an artist is to produce the finest, most
beautiful photographic prints possible. This process begins and
ends with light - direct, indirect, reflected, refracted,
or transmitted. The search for the intricate balance of light
and form starts with exposing the film with the greatest degree
of tonal values possible given individual scene constraints.
This is true for the monochrome negative as well as the color
positive films I use to record a scene.
Inherent in my approach is the personal vision shaped over
many years within the steep ramparts of the Sierra Nevada Range
of California - John Muir's Range of Light. By far and
away the subjects I choose to photograph feature both literally
and figuratively the range of light imbued in these magnificent
escarpments - indeed, images of such searing beauty they cut
like a hot knife straight to the heart of the Sierra. My appreciation
of the Sierra came naturally through a succession of wilderness
experiences beginning in my earliest years, from the Sierra's
wildest summits, thundering storms and rivers to its most serenely
sapphire lakes, verdant meadows and quieting brooks. Undoubtedly,
my history in this most exquisite of mountain citadels shaped
my understanding of the power and breadth of natural light and
form.
The monochrome images I choose to print for classical gelatin
silver prints not only convey a clear message of their subject
matter through vast tonal range and color - the range of light
- but also the synergistic effects of tone and form, resulting
in "colors" of gray not interpreted by the eye alone,
but ultimately by the experience held in the heart as well. Through
the printing of a full tonal range spanning all the "grays"
from deepest black to purest white, recently shed aspen leaves
lying upon a weather-bleached log exhibit all the yellows and
golds one remembers from the Indian Summer warmth of an early
autumn sojourn. Freshly fallen snow holds not only the color
of the photographic print's paper, but the winter chill one felt
upon the crisp dawn of a hopeful New Year's Day. The inky blackness
of stilled shore water may reflect the clarity of unencumbered
thought while the silver scintillations of a high, wind-whipped
lake, the cauldron of ideas yet resolved.
BEN DEWELL
Range of Light Photography, 2005
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