Stonehenge Overview by Paul Caponigro

The idea of working and producing a series in gelatin silver came in early 2012, when I was travelling to Santa Fe. I flew into Albuquerque and took a couple of hours to see the exhibition “Reconsidering the Photographic Masterpiece” at the University of New Mexico Art Museum before driving up to Santa Fe. In the show, the print that had me mesmerised was Paul Caponigro‘s “Stonehenge Overview” (above) which just glowed. There and then, that’s the piece that made me decide I should be working in silver again.

I’ve now printed about six negatives, just to try and get a feel for the paper, the tonality and image colour. I’m using a different format too. I’m so used to working square with Rolleflexes, but for this I wanted something different, so I’ve chosen to work with the 6×7 format, and I’m liking that a lot, more than I thought I would.

The images will be photographed in and around the Superior National Forest, the Gunflint Trail and the North Shore of Lake Superior. As for the theme of this series, it’s early days yet and I really don’t want to say too much about it right now as it could change direction a little, but it concentrates on the Laurentian Uplands, the North Shore Highlands of Minnesota and the Boreal Forest.

Untitled (from the Boreal Forest series)