Biennial Artist: Tillman Crane
Run Time: 4:04
Tillman Crane (United States, born 1955), Bus Stop, Finstown, 2007, platinum/palladium print, 10 x 24 inches (print); 19 x 32 inches (mat). Lent by the artist.
I am a photographer of the old school. I work with view cameras and sheet film, making hand-coated platinum prints. I enjoy the process from start to finish. The image presents itself on the ground glass, abstracted by virtue of being upside down and backwards. This allows me to step back from the reality of the scene and look at the image itself. Does it make sense? Does it capture of reflect what I feel in the moment? In processing the film, when the timer goes off and the negatives are light safe, the sense of anticipation rises again. Maybe this batch of film will reveal that special image that will define a life of work. Then I make the print, which often involves much subtle iteration. When at last, the image is ready for presentation, I know that this is the best work I can do up to this point in my life.
Potential: for me, there is no great potential that that in a box of unopened 5 x 12” film. Within rests the potential for capturing a great image.
Anticipation: a box of exposed but unprocessed film containing no mistakes, only great images.
Satisfaction: of all the sheets of film, exposed, processed, proofed, and printed, the image in which everything comes together, the one I feel is ready to be viewed by others.