Artist Statement
My dissatisfaction with the clinical qualities of straightforward silver gelatine prints lead me to begin to mark and deface my negatives, then to stain and tone the prints. This was all in an effort to give the subject and its image a physical presence while referencing its decay and dissolution on multiple levels; from the object itself to the image on paper. These gelatine silver prints were made from sanded or scraped large format negatives. The resulting prints were stained with chemical toners, light fogged, and marked with other graphic materials. The silver gelatine print is frustratingly resistant to the integration of these alterations. This lead to my research and eventual use of photogravure as the perfect hybrid of photography’s verisimilitude and the malleability of the intaglio copper plate.