SAN DIEGO FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY

Unique in SoCal, San Diego Fine Art Photography offers you a chance to elevate your favourite photograph to the level of a museum-quality art piece. We hand-print your image in platinum, the most prestigious and exclusive medium in the history of photography, as a one-off original, never to be repeated or reproduced. In doing so, the emotional value of the image is multiplied by the artistic value of the medium.

The process involves sending your digital file back in time to the chemical techniques and know-how of the mid-19th century. Over a period of several hours, the platinum print goes through multiple stages in the lab, bathed in chemicals, washed, and bathed again, taking on a unique quality.

The end result is far removed from the clinical precision of the digital print. Off of the heavy cotton paper, the platinum print glows from within with a soft, warm radiance, revealing the subtle tonal transitions reminiscent of the sfumato paintings of the Old Masters. This sharp-yet-soft quality lends a timeless, transcendent feel to the people and moments you cherish the most. A platinum print takes pride of place on your wall, and, given its physical permanence, is passed down as a priceless heirloom.

To help you appreciate the process, let us trace the steps along the way from the ordinary to the extraordinary:

1) It begins with a photograph - these days, a digital file:

2) The image is digitally edited and converted to black and white. Ordinarily, this is the point at which the "Print" button is pressed. For us, however, this is but a beginning.

3) The image is converted to a "negative".

4) The negative is output to a sheet of specialised clear plastic. With that, we have transitioned from the virtual to the physical realm.

5) Now the alchemy begins. A 10x10" sheet of the finest German watercolour paper is hand-coated with a freshly prepared mixture of light-sensitive chemicals.

The strokes of the brush spread the mixture with perfect evenness and work it into the fibers of the paper, while at the same time creating an irregular border around the edges of the field. Here, in the brushed framing of the image, the unique touch, the energy, of the artist are discerned, much like it is in Oriental calligraphy.

6) When the coated paper is dry, it is overlayed with the negative in a pressure frame and exposed to a calibrated dose of UV light.

7-18) The exposed sheet of paper is transferred to a tray and doused with the developing solution. Abruptly, the image is revealed in all its glory.

Over the course of the next two hours, the print - to give you the actual sequence of events - is developed, rinsed, cleared, washed, rinsed, toned, rinsed, fixed, rinsed, cleared, and finally washed for some 40 minutes.

19) At last, after 24 hours of controlled drying and curing, the print takes on its inimitable final appearance. Luminous, delicate, three-dimensional features, formed by platinum atoms on paper, float above the perfectly matte, subtly textured surface of the print, both life-like and iconographic at once. In your hand, you are holding a piece of fine art, ready to be framed and displayed.

From this,

to this,

and finally this.

Fait accompli.