Greetings from a hybrid on the Oregon Coast

[dwross]

I've always loved the concept of "hybrid" and the phenomenom of hybrid vigor - when you mix up genes (technologies) you very often get a stronger, more flexible (creative) organism (art form). Well, probably enough metaphor. My education consisted of bouncing back and forth between science and art. I evidentually ended up with a Masters in botany, but since I've been a fulltime photographer for the past ten years, I think I've decided once and for all to catch photons with film rather than with chlorophyll.

I'm a classic hybrid - if we've been at this digital stuff long enough to have "classics". I bought my first scanner so that I could make reproductions of my handcolored work to sell rather than the originals. No one wants to pay for twenty hours of handcoloring. It didn't take long for me to realize that the digital prints aren't reproductions. They are, in-and-of-themselves, legitimate works. Digital prints of black and white photographs (silver gelatin printed in a wet darkroom) handcolored with dyes, is the bulk of my paycheck work. http://dwrphotos.com/

Recently, I've finally added another layer. Analog to digital to analog. Digital negatives from film for printing on handmade silver gelatin paper. http://dwrphotos.com/blog/EmulsionResearch.htm
Great fun.

I don't have much patience with purebreds (fundamentalists) of any variety, especially the great "digital vs. analog" debate. Art, the ultimate expression of life, has always favored the hybrid I'm very pleased (thrilled actually, if allowed the license to gush) that hybridphoto is developing into such a dynamic site. Nice to meet you all.

Bio notes: Female, fifth decade, wife, mother, gardener, naturalist, beachcomber - but finally, and ultimately, a passionate, obsessed photographer.

[jd callow]

welcome to hybridphoto.

[dwross]

welcome to hybridphoto.

Thank you. Every time I check back in to hybridphoto I read something insightful and useful. It's going to make my ongoing resolution to limit my time in front of a computer screen an increasing challenge

[Nathan Jones]

Wonderful website you have. As well, a refreshing perspective. Welcome.

[Digidurst]

Hey! Welcome to Hybridville and thank you for sharing your website with us. I very much enjoyed my first look thru and I will return for more viewing later. Beautiful work

[dwross]

Thanks Nathan and Digidurst. It's a lot of fun to share with artists of a like mind about embracing the full potential of photography (or at least giving it a best-try shot I haven't had enough time yet to do justice to the Gallery, but what I've seen so far just amazes me with its creativity and beauty.

[nc5p]

I like your work. I share an interest in colorizing black and white film captured photos, though I go about it a different way. It's good to see somebody else doing this, I was feeling rather lonely about it.

[dwross]

hello nc5p,

It does seem sometimes that handcoloring is the pound puppy of photography. I've never quite understood why. When I was a kid, I saw an exhibit of handcolored albumen prints made in Japan in the 1880's. I was hooked. My first take on it was to try to make my watercolor paintings look just like those albumens (I had no idea what an "albumen" print was). A couple of years later I saw an original Adam's Yosemite print; my jaw dropped, I put two and two together and came over to photography.

Of course, handcolorists all have basically come to that same "aha!". When you think about it, handcoloring is an original hybrid approach. Do you suppose there would be any interest in adding handcoloring to hybridphoto.com? There are many avenues. Dyes, oils, and of course, for the digital fans, coloring by computer. I don't know much about that. It would be interesting to learn more.

[Don Bryant]

hello nc5p,

It does seem sometimes that handcoloring is the pound puppy of photography.

Denise,

Oh my gosh I just went to your web page and your hand coloring is awesome. Didn't you once post on the now defunct handcolor.com web site?

I love your work.

Have you discovered an inkjet paper that can be hand colored? It's been a while since I done any hand tinting; each print usually takes me 10 -12 hours to do.

Thanks,

Don Bryant

[dwross]

Don:

Ah shucks. Thank you. Yes, I belonged to Handcolor. I'm really impressed with your memory. I never knew why they shut down. They seemed to get a lot of traffic. nc5p's comment about being lonely made me think that maybe hybridphoto could find a corner for a handcoloring forum.

re: inkjet papers. No, I don't have any personal experience with color'able papers. I've heard that Epson Watercolor and Somerset Velvet work. I have played with printing on regular watercolor papers. I'll have to go back to my notes to remember which ones worked best. (see why I'm impressed with your memory :-) My personal workflow is to color on Ilford Multigrade FB glossy, scan that and then print on Epson Enhanced Matte. If you start experimenting with inkjet papers, I'd love to hear about your results.

Cheers,
Denise