Large Format Photography with Michael Miner

August 24, 2016

Michael Miner had a lecture on the defining principles of large format landscape photography. Mr. Miner captures images onto Ilford black and white sheet film using a Canham MQC57 with 4 X 5 and 5 X 7 backs and a Wehman 8 X 10 field camera. Prints are struck onto double-weight, fiber-based silver halide paper, using the "wet" darkroom process employed by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. The prints have an archival integrity of over 150 years and range in size from 11 X 14 inches to 4 X 5 feet.  There are no digital steps in any part of this process.  The visual acuity of the prints is a testament to the enduring quality of this process.

Mr. Miner demonstrated the operation of his large format cameras, discuss principles of composition and exposure and exhibit a number of prints from his portfolios.

In 2002, after a 25 year career of narrative storytelling as a screenwriter, filmmaker and educator, Mr. Miner began building portfolios titled The First Day, Where Land and Water Meet, Thoreau’s Children, Chaos Theory, Metamorphoses, The Gateless Gates, Water Studies and Treebones.

In 2010, 2013 and 2014 Black and White Magazine bestowed Merit Awards for Mr. Miner's work. In January of 2010 and September of 2014 he received National Park Service Artist-in-Residence Grants for month-long stays at the Grand Canyon and Chaco Canyon. In May of 2016, he accepted a month-long residency at the Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts in Wyoming.

The Wildling Museum was proud to have 2 of Mr. Miner's photographs in the Celebrating the National Parks of California exhibit and 2 also in the exhibit on the second floor, A Curator's Eye.