WHERE TECHNIQUE MEETS TECHNOLOGY

COLLECTOR'S FOCUS FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY

- JOHN O'HERN

In 1827, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765–1833), coated a polished pewter plate with a light-sensitive material, mounted it in a camera obscura, aimed the device out his window and, several days later, the view appeared on the plate. Niépce’s heliograph was the beginning of photography.

William Henry Jackson (1843-1942) photographed Yellowstone in 1871. A mule team carried his bulky cameras, heavy tripods, fragile glass plates, a portable darkroom and processing chemicals.

Long ago I attended a photography school in northern Denmark. We rode our bikes downtown to buy chemicals from the chemist, mixed them according to the effects we wanted in our final images and spent hours in an unventilated darkroom breathing in the chemicals until we ran out the door to the beach gasping for air.

Today, we aim our smartphones, take a picture and send it anywhere in the world within seconds.

Traditional techniques and modern technology are brought together to create the fine art photography of today. Michael Kenna’s photographs are often about space—natural space with human intervention as in