Galleries

William Wegman, October 1981, Rangeley, Maine, 1981

William Wegman (1943 – ), October 1981, Rangeley, Maine, 1981, dye transfer print. Middlebury College Museum of Art. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ted Perry, 1984.024. Courtesy William Wegman

William Wegman is known throughout the world for his inventive and witty photographs featuring his Weimaraner dogs in a variety of whimsical poses and guises. October 1981, Rangeley, Maine is a portrait of his first model, a dog named Man Ray, hidden under a layer of fall leaves. Man Ray sits below a sign forbidding hunting, trapping, or firearms that has ironically been used for target practice. A breed employed as hunting dogs, this camouflaged Weimaraner seems dressed to defy the edict, although his hunched pose conveys a mood of resignation.

Courtesy William Wegman

For Wegman, Maine is a kind of Eden, offering escape from his busy life in New York. As he puts it, “Nothing bad happens in Maine….”[footnote]For a delightful romp through Wegman’s fascination with nature, see William Wegman, Hello Nature (Brunswick, Maine: Bowdoin College Museum of Art, 2012).[/footnote] He often works in the fall, posing Man Ray’s successors in bucolic settings. Wegman first encountered the Rangeley Lakes Region as a teenager, and he has spent summers there for over three decades. Nature has also played an important part in Wegman’s art, going back to his book, Field Guide to North America and Other Regions, published in 1993, which featured paintings, drawings, and essays about the natural world.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, Tree Sonata, 1999, gelatin silver print on resin-coated paper mounted on wood panel with acrylics and varnish. Middlebury College Museum of Art. Purchase with funds provided by the Friends of Art Acquisition Fund and the Memorial Art Fund, 2013.020.

Like the work of Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, Wegman’s oeuvre is marked by a purposeful naïveté that combines humor with a deeper critique of ways that nature has been both revered and altered by humans.

Arthur F. Kales, Nude in Forest, c. 1916

Arthur F. Kales (1882-1936), Nude in Forest, c. 1914, gelatin silver print. Middlebury College Museum of Art. Gift of an anonymous donor and the Christian A. Johnson Memorial Fund, 1988. 012.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, Arthur F. Kales worked in the pictorialist style popularized by Alfred Stieglitz and his magazine, Camera Work. Pictorialists believed that photography deserved equal status to painting and other forms of artistic printmaking, and they made photographs that emulated the look of other high art media, such as charcoal drawings, etchings, or paintings. Soft focus and other photographic techniques were used to achieve this goal.

Born in the Arizona Territory, Kales moved to California in 1903 to study law at Berkeley. While in the Bay Area, he became interested in photography, especially the budding California pictorialist movement. Kales published numerous essays about American pictorialist photography in the journal Photograms of the Year, and he was awarded a fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society.

Nude in a Forest is typical of Kales’ ethereal subjects and style. The nude is carefully lit to emphasize her smooth skin, in comparison to the rough bark and dark setting of the trees behind her. Timeless and universal, Kales’ female figure seems to inhabit an Eden before the fall, where humans co-exist in innocent harmony with the natural world.

Carleton Watkins, Yosemite view, from Watkins Pacific Coast stereographs, c. 1871-75, albumen print from wet-collodion negative. Private collection

Unlike earlier photographers of Western scenes, such as Carleton Watkins, who often included figures in their natural scenes to suggest an uneasy relationship between humans and the vastness of the wilderness, by the early twentieth century photographers like Kales looked to nature with dreamy nostalgia, perhaps seeking refuge from an increasingly industrial world of steam engines, skyscrapers, cars, and railroads.

Marilyn Bridges, Barn Shadow, 1981

Marilyn Bridges (1948 – ), Barn Shadow, 1981, gelatin silver print. Middlebury College Museum of Art. Gift of an anonymous donor, 2014.078. Copyright Marilyn Bridges, 2017. All rights reserved.

In 1940, Woody Guthrie wrote the song, “This Land is Your Land.”  Photographer Marilyn Bridges, whose work is included in three sections of this exhibition, observed in 1990, “This song affirms the grandeur of the land as a symbol for the unlimited possibilities of a people blessed with this ‘land of good and plenty.’ But the years have not been good to the earth. Mankind has flexed its muscles and challenged the land to a test of durability. There can be no winners in this contest. For there can be no doubt that while the land will exist without people, people cannot live without the land.”[footnote]Marilyn Bridges and William Least Heat-Moon, This Land is Your Land: Photographs by Marilyn Bridges Across America by Air (New York: Aperture, 1997), p. 106.[/footnote]

In this photograph, Bridges uses the shadow of a barn in the foreground to imply that we are looking at farmland, while the trees and their shadows suggest a natural world apart from human alterations. Bridges’ aerial viewpoint distances the viewer, literally and figuratively, from the scene. In place of the customary intimate position of walking level, the aerial shot enables the viewer to view the scene in what one scholar has called the “post-human” gaze of a survelliance camera or reconnaissance satellite.[footnote]Joshua Schuster, “Between Manufacturing and Landscapes: Edward Burtynsky and the Photography of Ecology.” Photography & Culture 6(July 2013), pp. 207-08.[/footnote]

 

What is an archival pigment print?

Jeff Rich (1977 – ), Blue Ridge Paper Mill, Pigeon River, Canton, North Carolina, 2008, archival pigment print. Middlebury College Museum of Art. Purchase with funds provided by the Fine Arts Acquisition Fund, 2015.230.

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.

What is an Archival Pigment Print?

Mitch Dobrowner (1956 – ), Chromosphere, Green Grass, South Dakota, 2012, archival pigment print. Middlebury College Museum of Art. Purchase with funds provided by the Fine Arts Acquisition Fund, 2015.229.

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.

What is an Archival Inkjet Print?

Mitch Dobrowner (1956 – ), Chromosphere, Green Grass, South Dakota, 2012, archival pigment print. Middlebury College Museum of Art. Purchase with funds provided by the Fine Arts Acquisition Fund, 2015.229.

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.

Mitch Dobrowner, Chromosphere, Green Grass, South Dakota, 2012

dobrowner
Mitch Dobrowner (1956 – ), Chromosphere, Green Grass, South Dakota 2012, archival pigment print. Middlebury College Museum of Art.  Purchase with funds provided by the Fine Arts Acquisition Fund, 2015.229.

Since childhood, Mitch Dobrowner has loved being caught in thunderstorms. For nearly a decade, he has been chasing storms with his camera to capture nature at its most sublime. Teaming up with experienced storm-chaser Roger Hill, Dobrowner has photographed massive super cell storm systems in Tornado Alley and the Great Plains.

Dobrowner’s photographic roots lie in the work of Ansel Adams, whose carefully composed black and white photographs remain an important inspiration. Unlike Adams, however, Dobrowner uses digital technology. Dobrowner does very little post-processing, other than adjusting saturation levels. When National Geographic magazine published a ten-page spread of his photographs in 2012, according to Dobrowner “they pixel peeped every file, so it was almost like a certification for me. That these were nonmanipulated images….”[footnote]Quoted in Cody McCloy, “Capturing the turbulent beauty of ‘Storms’,” CNN Photos. http://cnnphotos.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/14/capturing-the-turbulent-beauty-of-storms/. Accessed Nov. 15, 2016.[/footnote]

Researching the formation of storm systems, Dobrowner learned to appreciate the complexity of atmospheric dynamics, as well as their metaphorical significance. He observed in 2011, “I see these storms as living, breathing things. They are born when the conditions are right, they gain strength as they grow, they fight against their environment to stay alive, they change form as they age, and eventually they die. Sounds familiar.”[footnote]Quoted in Barbara Davidson, “reframed: In conversation with fine art photographer Mitch Dobrowner, Los Angeles Times, June 5, 2012. http://framework.latimes.com/2012/06/05/reframed-in-conversation-with-fine-art-photographer-mitch-dobrowner/#/0. Accessed Nov. 15, 2016.[/footnote]

Ansel Adams (1902-1984), Mount Williamson, Sierra Nevada, from Manzanar, California, 1944, gelatin silver print. Middlebury College Museum of Art. Purchase with funds provided by the Electra Havemeyer Webb Memorial Fund and the Christian A. Johnson Memorial Art Acquisition Fund, 2003.006. © Ansel Adams Publishing Trust

Unlike his predecessor Ansel Adams, Dobrowner does not consider his work in terms of environmental activism. Nevertheless, he admits “If the images raise awareness, that would be wonderful. And yes, I am concerned about the environment – especially the American Southwest – but to achieve what I’m setting out to do I need to stay focused. And if one of my images influences someone to reconsider taking their ATV out and riding it over the desert floor… and that saves just one pristine rock/stone or landscape – well then I’ve accomplished something.”[footnote]Quoted in Barbara Davidson, “reframed: In conversation with fine art photographer Mitch Dobrowner, Los Angeles Times, June 5, 2012. http://framework.latimes.com/2012/06/05/reframed-in-conversation-with-fine-art-photographer-mitch-dobrowner/#/0. Accessed Nov. 15, 2016.[/footnote]

Eliot Porter’s Photographic Process

porter_1020Eliot Porter took up color photography at a time when it was widely considered “too literal,” and thus unsuitable for artistic images. His book, In Wildness is the Preservation of the World, marked a turning point in the acceptance of fine art color photography. The book was the first of many color books that the Sierra Club would publish by a variety of artists, and the first of twenty-five monographs of color photos Porter would produce.

Porter taught himself black and white camera and darkroom techniques while he was a teenager, and by the later 1930s he was a master printer with a growing reputation. In 1939 he took up color photography, which he focused on almost exclusively by the 1950s. He learned Kodak’s complicated dye transfer color printing process, which afforded great control over hues and produced stable color prints. Starting in 1962, he also used professional printers to make his prints, which he would then mount and spot.

Porter used a medium format view camera designed to hold 4 x 5 inch sheets of film, mounted on a tripod. To photograph birds, a beloved subject, he used a system of strobe lights. He would typically spend several hours composing the scene.

The Dye Transfer process enabled him to make full-color prints from film exposed in camera. From the original color film, three inter-negatives are 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 then dyed in the complementary colors, cyan, magenta, and yellow, and applied to the paper in exact register, along with highlight and shadow masks. The acid of the dyes migrate to the base of the paper, resulting in the final print.

Using the Digital Catalogue

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.