March 15th, 2012
By Maggie Taylor
A little note about the Digital Darkroom film at the Annenberg Space for Photography:
When Jerry Uelsmann and I were in Los Angeles in December for the opening of the exhibition “Digital Darkroom” we were amazed by the wonderful documentary film that was produced for the show. It was fascinating to see all the other participants in their own environments making their images. (Of course: we also really loved meeting all of these special artists in person!) This is the first time that either of us has been included in an exhibition that was accompanied by a film about the artists.
It is hard to believe that it has already been six months since the production team working on the film visited us at our studios and darkroom in Gainesville, Florida. Jerry and I spent several days with director Steve Kochones and the folks from Arclight Productions, showing them how we work and talking about our images. I don’t think they fully realized in advance just how hot and humid it can be in Florida in August.....but they managed to make the best of it. They even shot several outdoor scenes in what must have been 95 degrees and 90 percent humidity! They also were able to film Jerry creating one of his images in the darkroom using only his normal safelights. In that past, he had to have additional lights, which either fogged the paper or necessitated a bit of staging and did not capture the "real" printing process. So he was very excited that they were able to figure out a way to work in near darkness with him.
The combination of the film and the print installation at the Annenberg Space is really great to see--not to mention the second exceptional film on the 3D artists in the show. We were really honored to be included and look forward to seeing future shows in the Space!
Maggie Taylor became a towering figure in photography in the 1990s when she learned Photoshop and began creating her unmistakable artistic fingerprint. Utilizing scanned images, tintypes of 19th-century subjects and pure imagination, she creates a world that is simultaneously of the past and of the future, and a photographic grammar that is both provocative and embracing. See her work in "Digital Darkroom" which runs from December 17, 2011 - May 28, 2012.
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