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Photos to Inspire: Chris McCaw
By Lynne Eodice | Photos to Inspire |
Apr 1, 2006
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All images © Chris McCaw
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| Detail #10, Grandpa's Shop, Manteca, CA 2000 |
A California native, San Francisco-based Chris McCaw is a successful
fine-art photographer who shoots with a 7x17-inch large-format camera,
which he built himself. He also does his own platinum/palladium
printing, and has offered a “Digital Platinotype” service on his
website since 1996, in which he creates platinum/palladium prints from
his customers’ original negatives. McCaw enjoys revealing “how
beautiful and strange life can be” in his images, which can be seen in
his Road Trip Portfolio, Family Farm Catalog, and Manteca Portfolio on
his website, http://www.chrismccaw.com.
He explains that the 7x17-inch camera is part of a family of
extra-large format cameras known as “banquet cameras.” Before enlarging
negatives became possible, he says, this aspect ratio was ideal for
capturing large groups in prints where everyone would be recognizable.
“In 1994, I purchased my first 7x17 banquet camera,” McCaw states,
“which dated from the late 1800s. It was an expensive antique that I
worried about far too much.” For this reason, and to aid in his
“post-art-school financial situation,” he sold this camera and decided
to build his own.
“Two months and $150 later I had my own homemade 7x17-inch view
camera,” McCaw relates. “Everything from the frame to the ground
glass—even the bellows—I made myself. Some inventiveness came about due
to lack of funds, including using hacksaw blades for the back’s spring
mechanism. By doing all this, I was able to use the camera in very
precarious situations—in the middle of a stream, on the side of a
cliff, it does not matter. With the freedom that I could fix anything
that went wrong with the camera myself, I could take risks. It really
loosened my shooting style. Since 1995, the camera has been in constant
use. Though I have had to do some repairs and modifications, it has
survived.” McCaw uses Ilford FP4 black-and-white film, but says that
large-format film is getting very hard to find these days.
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| Hope, Portland, OR 1997 |
About platinum/palladium printing, McCaw states, “The unique
characteristics of platinum/palladium prints include a long tonal scale
capable of reproducing every subtle tonality from shadows to highlights
in a delicate and smooth fashion, a naturally warm print color, and
permanence…Each print I make has a brush applied coating onto 100% rag
paper. During the print exposure, the brushed areas outside of the
edges of the negative turn black. Because of manual application, each
print has a variety of brush marks, no one exactly like the next. In
some way, each print has its own signature.” It was because of his
early appreciation for platinum/palladium printing, he notes, that he
began using a large-format camera. “If you want to have a 7x17-inch
print, you need a negative the exact same size.”
Click Here to View a Gallery of Chris McCaw's Images
McCaw’s work has been exhibited at Baxter/Chang/Patri Fine Art, San
Francisco; the San Francisco International Airport Museum; Palo Alto
Art Center, Palo Alto, CA; International Fototage, Mannheim, Germany;
Watermark Fine Art, Houston, TX; and Image Gallery, Orthez, France;
among many other galleries. His images are part of the “Vital Signs”
collection at George Eastman House (a traveling exhibit), University of
Texas, Museum of Photographic Art in San Diego, De Anza College, and
other private collections.
Editor’s Note: We thank Chris McCaw for sharing his images with us in double exposure.
Let us know if you found this article useful, and tell us what kinds of articles you'd like to see in upcoming issues. Send your comments and ideas to the editor.
© Copyright 2010 by PHOTOWORKSHOP.COM
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Last Updated: Jul 10th, 2010 - 16:19:44
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