Window on Le Cher, Château de Chenonceau

Summer Print Series #1

Window on Le Cher, Château de Chenonceau | 8x10 Salt Print on Hahnemuhle Platinum Rag

This summer, I am going to do something a little different with this newsletter. Each fortnight, I will share a single printed image from my recent work along with a few words relevant to the image. I hope this meets with your approval. I have no formula for how I will present the images, and am therefore certain each post will be unique in style and content, save for the central feature of a single print in each.

As always, I welcome your feedback.

This scene depicts a little vaulted window in the first-floor Gallery at Chateau de Chenonceau with checkerboard marble floors through which you can see the trees and river Cher.

This print is part of the 2024 Lightbox Gallery Members show in Astoria, Oregon which will be on display June 8-July 10, 2024. Lightbox Gallery is one of the best photographic galleries in the US. If you are in Astoria this summer (or anytime) I highly encourage you to visit.

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Often called the “Garden of France,” the Loire Valley spans a distance of roughly 250 kilometers along the central stretch of the Loire River and encompasses an area of some 800 square kilometers. It is an agricultural area known for vineyards and fruit orchards. But perhaps most of all it is known for its abundance of historic chateaux, which number over 300.

Notable on this list are Chambord, Clos Lucé (where Leonardo DaVinci died), Amboise (where Leonardo is buried), Chinon, and Azay-Le-Rideau. The valley is literally peppered with castles. One of the most visited is Château de Chenonceau, which spans the River Cher, and where I took the photograph above in 2018.

Salt printing is a process first developed in 1839 by Sir Sir Henry Willian Fox Talbot. It was one of the first negative to paper-positive printing processes to be developed allowing multiple prints to be made from a single negative. At its most basic, a salt print can be made by coating a piece of paper in a salt solution, then a solution of silver nitrate. The reaction of the salt and the silver makes the paper photosensitive. This sensitized paper is then contact printed under sun light and washed out in a solution of salt water, then fixed in a Thiosulfate solution.

I have attempted salt prints on a number of occasions, and found them to be very tricky. But this winter, I resolved to get through the process. I spent several months testing and printing with different recipes, papers, paper sizing, and toners. The result is a large number of new prints which I will be showing and selling at festivals this summer and fall.