Well, here's where I attempt to answer, or at least give my visitors a clue about how this web site was assembled and how I have managed to create my photographs. This gets away from photography somewhat, but what the heck.
Let’s start from the outside and work in. This website was conceived, designed, developed and executed by yours truly. In January 2004 I took a course in Dreamweaver from Wake County Technical Community College. That’s all the smarts it took to create my first web site. This site was created with Dreamweaver MX, a very nice piece of software. This is now the ninth reincarnation of my web site. Still using the same software package, but I have moved up to Adobe CS4 for photoshop, InDesign and Acrobat. This redesign was suggested in an article on Avisualsociety, (the URL is http://www.avisualsociety.com/2007/10/30/your-website-sucksfrom-a-photo-editor/) Your website sucks...from a Photo Editor. The navigation of my site was not up to snuff. So, I have changed the design to get you to my photographs one click sooner. While I was conceptually redesigning my site, I decided to look at the aesthetics, too. The change was not as massive at you might think. I discovered the power of the Cascading Style sheet and that made a huge difference in the effort needed to overhaul the site.
Most of the folios I make have evolved over the past few years. Brooks Jensen is one of my photo buddies and he has pioneered the folio concept. While I make printed foliios, I have taken my version to the web in the form of pdf publications. These have been fun to create and share with web visitors. They are small, easy to download, have great visual appeal and are much better to view than jpgs most sites have.
I have used the Lightroom 2.5 software to make the Cary Elementary School web viewer. I like that so much, I think I will eventually rework the Fifty Project web and both Hong Kong Birds and Flowers projects to the Lightroom web gallery because it makes the site a bit more visually coherent.
My Photographs were created in a number of different media throughout the years. Briefly, here’s how they were done:
That's the fancy name I use for the prints churned out by my faithful Epson R2400 printer. I use the Epson pigments for the R2400 and print through the Quad Tone Rip (QTR) printer driver. Some of my prints are made on Hahnemuhle photo rag paper in either 300 or 180 weight or on Epson Ultra Premium Presentation Paper Matte. It's the box with the 5 stars on it. The Epson paper makes nice prints with the Epson pigments.
On COT320 or Crane’s Platinotype, hand coated with a puddle pusher from Bostick and Sullivan, or on machine coated paper from the Palladio Company. The best hand coated prints were made using the NA2 contrast agent rather than the “evil” modified ferric oxalate solution. Prints were developed with Potassium Oxalate. In 2003 I changed from the puddle pusher coating rod to the Richeson 9010 "magic brush". That was a good thing. Who thought that you could increase D Max of a print by changing coating tools. It really works magic.
In camera negatives were TMAX 400 developed in D-23 (two bath version). Digital negatives were produced by image setting machines using the method described by Dan Burkholder in his books. Starting in 2006, I use the mighty Epson Stylus R2400 photoprinter to make digital negatives on Pictorico OHP material. Check out the demonstration pages on how I make platinum/palladium prints here.
Another process that I no longer do. Many have told me that platinum prints were OK, but the pigment on paper versions of the same images were far, far better. Better results, less effort, more productivity. Not even a contest. I no longer work in platinum/palladium.
Most of the prints that have endured were made on Oriental Seagull graded paper developed in Zone VI developer. Prints for scanning were usually done on Ilford Multi-grade RC developed in Ilford developer. The enlarging was done on the mighty Beseler 45 MRX enlarger which I bought second hand in Houston in 1978. I sold off the dichroic colorhead and the condenser lamphouse and replaced it with the Zone VI cold light head. I also purchased one of the first (literally) Zone VI Cold Light Stabilizers for the light source. Enlarging lenses were Nikon and Schneider.
I am not an equipment fiend. I have used very few cameras in my career. Here’s the roll call:
Canon F-1 with 17 mm, 35 mm, 50 mm, 85 mm and 135 mm (The 135 mm lens was one of the most useless focal lengths ever conceived.) My favorite lens was the 17 mm.
Wista Field 45 (bought this really fine camera back in the late 1970s and still have it.) with 90 mm and 150 mm Fuji lenses and a 210 mm Caltar. After the Conley gave out (see below) I added a 4 x 5 to 5 x 7 increasing back so I wouldn’t have to drag two large format kits around. The 210 lens is gone along with the increasing back. As much as I love that camera, digital photography is so very much easier to do. I got about thirty years of use out of that camera. I don't think I will ever part with it.
Conley 5x7 with a Goerz Dagor lens. An oldie but a goodie used to get me into larger negatives for platinum printing. I gave it up when it became too loose to hold both front and back standards motionless. I do remember the last photograph I made with that old camera. It was a beautiful streamside photograph with water, rocks, plants and beautiful pre-dawn light - in the parking lot of Oregon Caves. I made the photograph, we packed up and went home.
Canon EOS 630 with a 28 to 80 and 80 to 200 mm zoom lenses. Silly me, I bought this camera because I wanted to replace the Canon F-1. By that time, I was just using the large format camera and we wanted something for family snapshots and vacations. So I dumped the F-1 and bought this camera. Silly me. Shoulda kept the F-1.
Fuji645zi a medium format point and shoot on steroids. I had so much fun with this camera that I had to get rid of it. I made so many photographs that I didn’t want to develop it was embarassing, I had to sell the camera because it was so wonderful. That is really stupid, but that’s what it was like for me. Did I mention that after more than thirty years of film photography I really don’t like developing film any more? The cure for that is, you might guess is…
The Fuji S7000Z.This camera is my first foray into digital. This little guy is wonderful. It gives me enough information to create a digital negative with the resolution I want up to 11 x 14. Going directly to a digital file eliminates the following steps: Develop sheet film, expose and develop silver gelatin print and scanning (either film or print) and more importantly, remove the mind numbingly boring task of spotting in photo shop. I value this little camera in that it provides instant, accurate exposure data and it allows me to review composition immediately. As a result, all exposure and composition errors are solved in the field. Now, I can concentrate on making beautiful images.
Oh yeah, and this little guy will make videos, too. If you subscribe LensWork extended, the video in the editor's comments of issue #59 was made with my Fuji S7000Z.
The Fuji S9100. An upgrade purchased at the end of 2007. This is a fine camera. Two years later and I am still using it. It does have its limitations, but that's only because it is two years older than when I bought it. But, I'm not out the big bucks, because I bought it as a "refurb" and only had to buy a few accessories to make it equivalent to a brand new camera.
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All photographs © Joe Lipka
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Permission for any use including prepress and electronic must be granted by Joe Lipka, joelipka@joelipkaphoto.com
Last updated: October 15, 2009