October 08, 2022 through November 09, 2022

Donald MacDonald • Reminisces in Platinum

Please join us from 4-7pm on Saturday, October 8th for the Opening Reception.
Donald will be here, please come in and meet and see this amazing collections of prints, Donald’s Life’s Work

Several years ago I put out a book entitled “Five Decades in Silver” a small sampling of the several hundred photographs I’d taken since seriously picking up a camera in the 1970’s. I’ve now decided to review my work and print select images in platinum/palladium and this show is a small sampling of that work. The book and now this show demonstrates how over the years I’ve changed my preferred camera format (small-medium-large format) and widen my area of subject matter to include first still lifes and then nudes. While my format may have changed my way of seeing stayed basically the same; I was always concerned with depth of field and fine detail so more often than not I used a tripod even to shoot 35mm (e.g. ‘Road to Clifden’, ‘Paris, Botanical Gardens’) and frequently shot with ASA 25 film (e.g. ‘Jacobsberg Creek’, ‘Mirror Lake’). The moves to larger formats allowed me to maintain the detail while using faster film, and in the case of the move to large format it also gave me the ability to adjust the image through the use camera shifts and tilts.

The three greatest influences on my photography were Ruth Bernhard, Imogen Cunningham and Edward Weston. All three believed virtually anything could be the subject of a fine photograph and they proved it by making photographs of a holey rag on a clothes line (Bernhard), an unmade bed with hairpins (Cunningham) and a pile of trash (Weston). In keeping to this spirit I try to look at everything as a possible subject for a photograph, and thus to keep things simple in describing the type of photography I like to divide my work into three categories. The first category I’ve found the painting term ‘plein air’ to be good descriptor. When applied to painting and to my work, ‘plein air’ simply means working outside and painting, or in my case photographing, what you see. All my 35mm work and much of my medium and large format work fall into this category from the earliest photo in my portfolio, “Seafoam” (1972, 35mm), to “Old Boot” (1992, 6×6cm), to “Ivlet Bridge” and “Under 520” (both 2018, 4”x5” and 5”7” respectively).

When I changed to medium format I added still lifes to my repertoire (e.g. “Rose on Wood”, “Dying Tulip”) and am continuing this work with large format (e.g. Two Tulips and Shadows”). While only floral examples of my still lifes appear in this show I’ve also worked with other plants, shells, rocks, pottery and vegetables (including a couple of peppers, I chose hot instead of sweet). It was shortly after moving to large format work I had the opportunity to add nudes to my repertoire. While all my plein air work is unstaged with my only controls being camera positioning and adjustments and my still lifes are highly staged and are usually done under artificial light, my nude work is a blending of the two approaches. Some nudes are highly staged and done using artificial light (“Reclining Nude”) while others are done under natural light and the model takes a pose with little or no direction (“In the Sun” and “Eve Unrepentant”). “Triangles” is a staged photograph done under natural light.

The categorizing of my work is just a way of simplifying a general discussion on how I work. It is unimportant when viewing each individual piece of work because the category may not be obvious from the final image. This is demonstrated in this exhibit by “Imogen’s Tower” which may appear to be a still life done in the studio but is actually a plein air photograph of a magnolia blossom on a tree.

Technical Details

All images in this show were contact printed from digital negatives created from scanned film negatives. The use of digital negatives has allowed to produce clean negatives (no spotting necessary on the final print) of the desired size and contrast for the print medium. All prints are on hand-coated 300 gsm 100% cotton paper and are mounted for showing on 4 ply 100% cotton museum board using polypropylene mounting corners. The prints are signed on front and back including the title, year the photograph was taken and the year the print was made.

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