Chris Dunker Uses Sunset Photo Metallic Paper for Gallery Show of Classic Car Art

When Chris Dunker of Dunker Imaging Services, Inc. in Logan, UT first learned that LexJet was planning to introduce Sunset Photo Metallic paper, he immediately knew it was a product he wanted to try. He was preparing to produce a series of prints of classic cars and motorcycles for an art-gallery exhibition and thought Sunset Photo Metallic might provide the ideal surface for showcasing the highly polished, meticulously photographed vehicles as works of art.

The showcard features a 2005 Harley-Davidson Softail Night Train FXSTB photographed by Chris Dunker.

Dunker, who is known for his artistry in photographing industrial architecture and machinery, was already using a somewhat unorthodox method of finishing and displaying limited-edition prints. After outputting his images on a smooth, matte watercolor paper on his Epson Stylus Pro 9800, he would then mount the prints to sheets of aluminum, using a cold-roll laminator and an acid-free mounting adhesive. Then, he would take the mounted prints to a friend’s auto-body shop and have them sprayed with a high-gloss, polyurethane coating.

Although the matte art paper produced prints with a subdued color gamut, the polyurethane dramatically increased the color saturation and contrast. The coating really made the colors snap and gave each print a distinctive look. Dunker wondered if the Sunset Photo Metallic paper would help him achieve the same type of look without the need to apply the polyurethane coating.

Wildlife Photographer Applauds LexJet Sunset Photo Metallic as ‘Best of Both Worlds’

We appreciate all of the feedback we get from customers who try different products. LexJet uses these insights to continually develop new and improved products.

For example, we recently received a nice note from Brian Hampton, the nature and wildlife photographer who was featured in Vol. 4, No. 1 of LexJet’s In Focus newsletter for a 5 x 8 ft. print he produced on LexJet Sunset Photo eSatin 300g paper for a special exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. (The print showcased Brian’s image of a lioness that was the grand-prize winner in the Nature’s Best Photography Windland Smith Rice International Awards.)  In the note Brian tells us why he is so impressed with LexJet’s new Sunset Photo Metallic paper. 

ASP Fellow Joe Campanellie Tells How His Passion for Photography Was Reborn

Being recognized as an ASP Fellow is a high honor. Since the American Society for Photographers inaugurated the program 40 years ago, only 104 photographers have qualified for the distinction. One photographer who earned the honor this year is LexJet customer Joe Campanellie, who runs Campanellie’s Portraits in Damascus, MD.

ASP Fellow Joe Campanellie

He proudly reports that all 25 of the original images he presented to the ASP judges were 20 x 20 in. prints that he output himself using LexJet Sunset Photo Gloss Paper 300g on his 24-in. Epson Stylus Pro 7800. “Attendees who viewed these images at a special ASP exhibit at PPA’s Imaging USA Show in Nasvhille in January were amazed at the color saturation and quality of the prints,” says Joe. “Many people were amazed that these were not traditional lab prints.”

An Out-of-This-World Print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag

©Leland Melvin, NASA

Last November, an image by London-based photographer Elaine Duigenan was printed on Hahnemühle Photo Rag® and flown to the International Space Station aboard Shuttle Atlantis. The print was then photographed floating in the weightlessness of space. This image, shot by astronaut Leland Melvin, shows the print floating near the window of the Destiny Lab with Earth below.

Duigenan captures beautiful patterns in nature in way that calls attention to how these patterns seem to replicate on both micro and cosmic scales. The image chosen to go to the International Space Station depicts trails made when snails eat algae. When photographed from above, the captured patterns begin to take on the form of the Earth. This resemblance can be seen in the image taken aboard the Space Station with the world below.

©Elaine Duigenan

The print comes from Duigenan’s new series MICRO MUNDI (Small Worlds) that will be exhibited at The Klompching Gallery in New York from June 17-Aug. 7.

Duigenan, whose work in included at an exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, says “The print is just as important to me as the initial image.” She says some people have compared the rich blacks in her images to etchings. She chooses to use Hahnemühle fine-art papers for her prints because “They have the quality, weight and feel to ideally complement the delicacy of my images.”

For more information about Elaine’s work, visit: www.elaineduigenan.com

LexJet sells a wide selection of Hahnemühle papers.  If you have any specific questions about the paper or printing your images, you can contact a LexJet photo-printing specialist at 800-453-9538.

Joe Baraban Uses Sunset Photo eSatin for Museum Prints

After 40 years of success shooting corporate and advertising photography, Joe Baraban has submerged himself in the world of contemporary art photography. For the past two years, he has traveled throughout Texas documenting old windows. “I photograph the windows as they exist today, and use virtually no help from Photoshop,” says Baraban.

Following a one-man show of his Windows series in Houston and Austin, TX, his work is now represented by the Bering & James gallery in Houston.

©Joe Baraban

When the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston recently added three of the images from the Windows series to their permanent photography collection, Baraban crafted the prints himself, using LexJet Sunset Photo eSatin 300g photo paper on the Epson Stylus Pro 7880 he had previously bought from LexJet.

LexJet Sunset Photo eSatin has the same finish as the luster photo paper he had been using for his everyday work, but feels more substantial. That’s because it is 11 mils thick and weighs 300 gsm, compared to 10-mil, 250-gsm paper he had been using. On a spec sheet, these may not seem like big differences, but most photographers and print buyers can immediately sense that Sunset Photo eSatin is something special.

According to Baraban, the extra thickness makes big prints easier to handle and exhibition prints less susceptible to dings and creases.  He points out that “No one is likely to pay hundreds of dollars for a print with visible dings.” He recalls having to reprint one exhibition print that had been sold because it got damaged on the way to the frame shop.

Baraban has started using the paper in his everyday work and gladly recommends LexJet Sunset Photo eSatin Paper to the many other photographers he meets at camera clubs, exhibitions, or in the many workshops he has taught in Maine, Santa Fe, California, Canada, Florida, and Texas. Joe is also an instructor in the online Picture Perfect School of Photography.

In fact, it was Baraban’s active involvement in the photography community that led to his images being accepted into the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. As an accomplished commercial photographer who had won dozens of awards during his long career, Baraban had been invited to judge the spring exhibition of the Woodlands Photography Club in Woodlands, TX. One of the fellow judges was Natalie Zelt the assistant curator of the photography collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.  After he showed her his Windows series, Zelt called them to the attention of the museum’s internationally known photography curator Anne Tucker, who selected three of the images for the permanent collection.

©Joe Baraban

“I started my series of windows quite by accident,” explains Baraban. On a road trip to Nashville, he decided to take some extra time photographing the countryside. As he was leaving small town in Mississippi, he noticed an old deserted building with an interesting front door.

“Halfway through my setup, I became bored with the light since the door was in shadow,” says Baraban. “So I walked around to the side of the building where I saw several old and interesting windows that were in bright sunlight. I settled on one particular window, and even though it had weathered poorly through the years, there was something almost mystical about it. Father Time, aided by the elements, had transformed the windows and the surrounding brick walls into a cacophony of colors, shapes, and textures. The contrast, from the bright sunny day, had rendered the various hues to the point of being surreal and exaggerated.” 

The effect was so amazing that he didn’t feel it necessary look for a unique angle or height from which to take the shot: “Something was telling me not to distort the integrity of these amazing windows.”

Now as he goes “window shopping” throughout the state of Texas, he tries to imagine what the windows he photographs would tell him if they could speak.

“Most of the structures have long since been abandoned, and I can only wonder who the last person was to look out this particular window, and what they might have seen and thought before they left for good.”

To see more images from Baraban’s Windows collections visit his website: www.joebaraban.com.

For more information about LexJet Sunset Photo eSatin, visit LexJet’s website, or call an account specialist at 800-453-9538.

©Joe Baraban

Photo Book and Exhibit on Ferrari Testarossa

Photographic artist Duane Conliffe, who was profiled in Vol. 3, No. 5 of LexJet’s In Focus newsletter, is proud to report he is  one of the featured artists at The Art of Living Black Exhibition at The Richmond Art Center in Richmond, CA from Jan. 26-March 13.

The first major public exposure of the exhibition will take place Saturday, Feb. 20 during an artist’s reception.  Conliffe’s portion of the exhibition is built around Redhead—The Ferrari Testarossa Art Photography Book that he produced earlier this year.

“The Redhead project began when a San Francisco car collector asked me to create a very special, high-quality book about one of his prized vehicles, the 1988 Ferrari Testarossa,” explains Conliffe. “He was looking for something unique to express his appreciation for the extreme levels of craftsmanship throughout this car as well as the superb quality of the driving experience.”

 Conliffe believes he was approached to create the one-of-a-kind book, because of his combination of experience photographing motorsports, auto and motorcycle events and expertise in bookmaking. He was honored to accept the project.

 “The Ferrari Testarossa was named after the Testa Rossa sports racing car series from the late 1950s,” says Conliffe.”And in fact, Testarossa means Redhead in Italian. This ‘redhead’ in the sports car refers to the red painted camshaft covers on the 12 cylinder engine.”

 Conliffe photographed the Testarossa in four sessions over a nine-month time span. He shot the exotic sports car at various locations in San Francisco and Alameda, CA, with the intention of telling the story of the car through purely visual means.

 “The handcrafted details of the Testarossa are great subjects for any photographer,” notes Conliffe,“but I also wanted to portray the driving experience through my photography because that is what an extreme sports car like this is made for.”

 After all the images had been captured, Conliffe spent several weeks in editing, post processing and book design. He paid a lot of attention to the sequence of images on the pages in order to create the right visual flow for the viewer.

  He also wanted full control over how the final images looked, so he printed all 75 color plates for the book himself, using his Epson Stylus Pro 9800 with Epson UltraChrome K3 inkset.

 “In my opinion, the ultimate expression of the photographer is the fine art photographic print. So one of the goals of this project was to use my digital-printing skills to create unique high-end artwork,” says Conliffe. The book pages were printed on Moab Entrada 190 gsm, 100% cotton, double-sided, bright paper. The finished pages were mounted into the Moab Chinle Digital Book black leather cover.“This makes a first-class presentation when finished off with the black slip-case that is provided with the book cover.” notes Conliffe.

 Judging from the reactions he got from his colleagues in photography and art, he realized that the book project was really something special.

 “So, I decided to expand the scope of this project,” said Conliffe. “I decided to present the book as part of an annual fine-art exhibition that I have participated in for the last seven years.”

 Visitors to the exhibit at The Richmond Art Center will see the one-of-a-kind book on display, but they won’t be able to thumb through its pages. Instead, Conliffe has set up an HP Dreamscreen 100 digital display to run a continuous slideshow of all 75 images featured in the Redhead book. In addition, he converted five of the best images from the book into 26 x 40 in. black-and-white prints. He output the prints on LexJet Sunset Select Matte Canvas, then coated and stretched them himself.

In keeping with the Art Center gallery hours, the HP Dreamscreen 100 is programmed to turn itself on at 11 am each day and shut itself off at 5 pm.

 “It tends to draw viewers in because it is a dynamic display with a very sleek design,” says Conliffe. “It readily complements the quality of the “Redhead” photography and the ultra-stylish nature of the subject matter.”

 Conliffe reports that the black-and white canvas prints have also drawn serious interest: “Black-and-white imaging has universal appeal,” he says. “Photographers, artists and the general public all seem to have a great affinity for this work. I noticed the same phenomenon last year when I presented a large-format black-and-white portrait photographic exhibition on LexJet Water-Resistant Satin Cloth.”

The canvases are protected with Golden Archival Varnish with UVLS (Gloss). “I sprayed the varnish in two cross-directional coats, let the coats dry for 20 minutes, and then sprayed with two more cross directional coats,” explains Conliffe. “Then, I let the coated canvas dry overnight. After the canvases were dry, I stretched and mounted them to heavyweight stretcher bars and installed hanging hardware. This presentation is very clean and has a lot of impact.”

 On Saturday, Feb. 20, Conliffe is participating in the Artist Talks from 1 to 2:30 pm before the Artist Reception is held from 3:00 to 5:00 pm. More information can be found at The Richmond Art Center website.

 Conliffe is also participating in a satellite exhibition that features 13 of the 53 artists showcased at The Art of Living Black exhibition. This show will be held at Mills College in Oakland on Feb. 27 and 28.

He wouldn’t mind at all if this exposure resulted in other art-book commissions from other car collectors. He can reached through his website: www.DuaneConliffe.com