Prints

The history of photography is loud with the grieving of photographers lamenting the demise of one beautiful paper after another, to be replaced by materials where ‘new’ didn’t always mean ‘better’. In recent times this process has been accelerated by two factors; environmental legislation has outlawed the use of heavy metals such as cadmium (which produced papers of great depth and warmth), and secondly, the digital revolution, which has made the production of quality, large scale papers unsustainable. On the positive side however, digital production has given photographers hitherto unparalleled levels of image control.

David Parker’s two earlier landscape projects ‘The Phenomenal World’ and ‘Sirens’ were printed on chlorobromide paper, the only one capable when toned of echoing the tonalities that were characteristic of albumen prints from the 19th Century. In truth however, no modern paper is capable of delivering the tonal subtlety of those pioneering papers. Parker’s favoured paper ceased production in 2007, and those papers that are still available in the required size fail to deliver the quality and consistency necessary for dependable results. However, far from being bereft at this loss, he has embraced the new digital medium with all the enthusiasm that Dageurreotypists must have experienced when wet-plate photography arrived. It is only now with the development of the Archival Pigment Print that David Parker has at last been able to realise the tonalities that he has long sought. The infinite degree of tonal fidelity now possible with the new medium is truly breathtaking – finally, the ‘impossible to print’ negative has met its match!

A few images from The Phenomenal World and Sirens are still available in Silver-Gelatin. All future prints will be Archival Pigment Prints.