Please be advised that these examples are scans from original prints and do not reflect an accurate representation of how B&W prints truly look on paper.

All photos by April Sanders.

Contact sheet

This particular contact sheet was crucial in determining the selection of a negative for an art show titled Masked. It was important that great care was taken in crafting the best possible contact sheet. It had to be clean and clear in order to describe which negative to choose for the final print. While in the darkroom, I found the entire contact sheet to be very interesting as a whole, and ended up using the entire proof for the show. It was printed that good. That’s how we do it.

Sculpture

This sculpture spoke to me during my visit to the Getty. It demanded a photograph.

Nikon FM2 in hand, I decided that a head-on approach was the only way to compose the intense power of the stance and vulnerability of the figure.

Photographing anything 3D, head-on, can be tricky. Especially when the photographer has little or no control of the lighting. The decisions required to maintain the sculptural depth and, form and balance of the sculpture in low light were difficult. I chose to utilize a slower shutter speed knowing I wanted to bleed out the background to separate the sculpture from it’s black mirror-like background. Using a slower shutter speed without a tripod also made the image softer with additional grain.

Once in the darkroom I was able to further darken the background by burning in the distracting reflections, making them darker. The increased grain resulting from the low light and 400 ISO film accencuated the form of the sculpture. The texture and contrast were further emphasized by the use of quality fiber based paper. After several test strips I found the perfect exposure for the statue, but was unhappy with the background separation. By burning the background and selectively dodging the sculpture I was able to achieve a blacker background and the sculpture suddenly “popped” out. And it spoke to me, once again.

Portrait

I took this portrait in a studio I worked at a few years ago. They are my relatives, aunt Linda and uncle Steve. The hallway of their condo in Long Beach is filled with photographs of our family and I always enjoy hanging out and looking at them all.

I remember the shoot clearly, they were very relaxed and comfortable; most likely because they knew the photographer very well, or was it the wine we were enjoying? A little of both. I believe this image was taken just after I asked them to recall the first time they met. They both looked at each other laughing, and remembered meeting at Disneyland, where they both worked. They hated each other! Then they briefly went on and described how their relationship kindled while they physically moved closer to one another in front of the camera. This photograph really captures the love and warmth felt between these two, it is them, together.

In the darkroom, I used a piece of nylon stocking under the enlarger like a filter to soften the image. I do this sometimes for studio portraits because I prefer a softer light when using artificial.

When I asked for Linda’s permission to use their photograph as a print example in the website she stated,”Girl, you can use me to make as much money as you can!” I just love her.

Fine art

This photograph is from a series I shot at the cliffs over in funky Ocean Beach. I desired a soft, dim light for these and was aiming for sunrise to achieve this. We woke up too late in the morning, instead going at about 1pm to scout locations and wait for sunset. We waited all day.

I had a medium format Mamiya and my Nikon FM2, luckily, because the Mamiya’s shutter got stuck and would not fire. After time and light consuming frustrations caused by trying to fix it we were running out of light. We ran up and down the cliffs, inside and out of crevices photographing, catching the day’s last rays.

This is one of the images I chose for a show at Gelato Vera cafe. Virginia is laying in the dirt wearing my mother’s prom dress from the sixties (yes mum, I had it dry cleaned, I know it’s a relic). She’s actually in a cliff crevice while Denise, unseen, is shining a flashlight on her apparently sleeping face. I had the flashlight idea to accomplish a sort of odd peering light, almost intrusive, investigative or curious. This image, while belonging in a series, may not address that by itself but the semi-lit sleeping face creates questions.

Because of the rapidly setting sun and a hand-held slow shutter speed, the image is a tad soft, dreamy and moody. I further intensified this moodiness by printing it darker than I normally would. The scan does not do much justice to the surreal feeling of this image when seen up close, on glossy fiber based paper. The difference is immense.

We often joke about the experience, the laying in the dirt, the waiting for the sun to set all afternoon.