Category: Uncategorized

“As an unregulated river,” Franklin Roosevelt declared at the inauguration of California’s Boulder Dam in 1936, “the Colorado added little of value to the region this dam serves.”[footnote]Quoted in Andrew Needham, Power Lines: Phoenix and the Making of the Modern Southwest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), p. 26.[/footnote] Roosevelt expressed a belief held by many people at that time (and still held by many today) that the need to maintain and expand our energy use outweighs the need to protect the natural environment.

In 1960, Eliot Porter made a rafting trip down the Colorado River through Glen Canyon in southeastern Utah. Porter was amazed by the colors and shapes of the canyon, which, with the impending completion of the Glen Canyon Dam, was soon to be flooded. When the Executive Director of the Sierra Club, David Brower, saw Porter’s photographs of the canyon, he quickly decided to publish a book chronicling the soon-to-be lost landscape. When The Place No One Knew, Glen Canyon on the Colorado was published, Brower sent a copy to the president and every member of congress, along with a letter pleading for construction to be stopped. Although the dam was soon completed, Porter’s photographs helped build government support for limiting further dam construction in the West.

Listen as Land and Lens Curator Kirsten Hoving and Professor John Elder share their thoughts about Porter’s Glen Canyon project:

Before the advent of digital technology at the end of the twentieth century, the gelatin silver process had been the most commonly used method of making black and white prints since the 1890s. A negative image is transferred to light-sensitive paper that has four layers: a paper base, a white opaque coating of gelatin and barium sulfate that creates a smooth surface, the gelatin layer that holds the silver grains of the photographic image, and a protective gelatin overcoat. Properly exposed gelatin silver prints are quite stable if exhibited under controlled light conditions.

Until the 1970s, art photographers used this process almost exclusively to create high-quality black and white prints. Color photography was considered a commercial medium, not suited to serious artistic expression. Today, as fewer and fewer photographers are working in darkrooms, gelatin silver printing is quickly becoming an antiquated, historic process.

Works in the Exhibition page to-do:

Images height requirements:

• Vertical – 235
• Horizontal – 200
• Square – 235

Link images and Artist-Title-Date to page

The Dye Transfer process produces full-color prints from film exposed in camera. From the original color film, three inter-negatives are made and then exposed through red, green, and blue filters. From these separation negatives, gelatin reliefs capable of absorbing dyes in exact proportion to the densities of the negatives are made. The matrices are dyed in the complementary colors, cyan, magenta, and yellow, and then applied to the paper in exact register, along with highlight and shadow masks. The acid ph of the dyes migrates to the base ph of the paper, resulting in the final print. Since the Kodak Corporation no longer makes the materials used in this process, it is used today only by a handful of photographers.

Digital photographs are images made from a digital file using a printer that applies very fine drops of ink on paper. Inks may be dye-based, however pigment-based inks have greater stability. The longevity rates of many pigment prints are calculated at over 100 years, depending on the paper used. As digital technology was developed in the early twentieth-first century, the question of print stability led to the development of increasingly stable inks and papers. Materials are subjected to rigorous accelerated again tests to determine how long a photographs will last without significant fading. Today there are many options of digital rag papers and inks that are expected to last more than a century, if prints are properly stored and exhibited.

The terms “Archival Pigment Print,” “Giclée Print,”  and “Inkjet Print” are sometimes used interchangeably, however there are important distinctions between the stability of the types of inks used for prints.

Digital photographs are images made from a digital file using a printer that applies very fine drops of ink on paper. Inks may be dye-based, however pigment-based inks have greater stability. The longevity rates of many pigment prints is calculated at over 100 years, depending on the paper used. As digital technology was developed in the early twentieth-first century, the question of print stability led to the development of increasingly stable inks and papers. Materials are subjected to rigorous accelerated again tests to determine how long a photographs will last without significant fading. Today there are many options of digital rag papers and inks that are expected to last more than a century, if prints are properly stored and exhibited.

The terms “Archival Pigment Print,” “Giclée Print,”  and “Inkjet Print” are sometimes used interchangeably, however there important distinctions between the stability of the types of inks used for prints.

Digital photographs are images made from a digital file using a printer that applies very fine drops of ink on paper. Inks may be dye-based, however pigment-based inks have greater stability. As digital technology was developed in the early twentieth century, the question of print stability has led to the development of increasingly stable inks and papers. Materials are subjected to rigorous accelerated again tests to determine how long a photographs will last without significant fading. Today there are many options of digital rag papers and inks that are expected to last more than a century if prints are properly stored and exhibited.

The terms “Archival Pigment Print” and “Giclée Print” are also used for such prints. The longevity rates of many pigment prints are calculated at over 100 years, depending on the paper used.

Home Page: The home page displays the eight sections of the exhibition. When you enter a section of the exhibition, tap on that category and you will be taken to the photographs in that section. There is an introduction—be sure to scroll down to see if there is a video accompanying it—and discussions of individual photographs that can be accessed by tapping on the pictures. Again, be sure to scroll all the way down on those individual pages.

To return to the previous page, tap the return arrows to the left of the website address (on a tablet you need to scroll to the top of the page to see these arrows). Or, tap the “click here to return to” button in the upper right corner of text pages.

To return to the home page, tap the green banner words “Land and Lens at the top of the page, or click the “home” button at the bottom of the page.

For an alphabetical list of all works in the exhibition, scroll to the bottom of any page and click the “Works in the Exhibition by Artist” button. Remember, to return to the previous page use return arrow in the upper left, next to the URL (“sites.middlebury.edu/landand lens”). Click on the “Land and Lens” banner of the “home” button to return to the home page.

For brief explanations of photographic processes, click on the gray process identification in the captions under each photograph, or click the “Photographic Processes” button at the bottom of any page.

Videos: If you would like to watch the videos separately, you can find them by clicking the “Videos Made for the Exhibition” button at the bottom of any page. If the videos are not displaying on your personal device, make sure ad blockers and Privacy Badger are turned off.

If you would like to listen to selections of music composed by students for the exhibition, click the “Student-Composed Music” button at the bottom of any page.

To Use a Headset

If you would like to listen privately, headsets are available in the Museum.Simply plug your headset cord into the jack on the top of the iPad. Wait a moment for the headset to sync. Volume can be controlled with the small buttons on the side of the iPad.

To Listen Without a Headset

You can control the volume on the iPad by using the small buttons on the upper right side.

Digital photographs are images made from a digital file using a printer that applies very fine drop of ink on paper. As digital technology was developed in the early twentieth century, the question of print stability have led to the development of increasingly stable inks and papers. Materials are subjected to rigorous accelerated again tests to determine how long a photographs will last without significant fading. Today there are many options of digital rag papers and inks that are expected to last more than a century if prints are properly stored and exhibited. The terms “Archival Pigment Print” and “Giclée Print” are also used for such prints. The longevity rates of many pigment prints are calculated at over 100 years, depending on the paper used. As an ink-based process, modern digital printing has more in common with late nineteenth-century photogravures than with chromogenic prints made throughout the twentieth century.