Deep Focus, High-Definition Still Life
Photographs made in high definition and deep focus, by a highly laborious procedure that I have devised. In order to equal (or surpass) the image quality of a view camera photograph, I do two things, to put it briefly: I photograph the subject in sections, eventually to reassemble the whole, and I photograph each section in a succession of precise focuses, from nearer to farther in depth, and then combine the sharpest parts of all those exposures into one image that is maximally sharp everywhere. The final step is the reassembly of the sections as mentioned. In this way I avoid the fall-off in depth-of-field of an image made at a single compromise focus (a tendency especially severe when one works close to the subject), and also create an image of much higher definition than a single frame could yield.
Image sizes are given in these terms: the first size is at the photograph's native resolution of 300ppi (pixels per inch). The second size is that of the photograph reduced to fit on a sheet of A3Plus artist's paper, which measures 32.9 x 48.3 cm., or 13" x 19". On such paper the image size may not exceed 31.21 x 41.3 cm.. The A3Plus prints themselves are printed personally by me, one at a time, with the archival pigments of the Canon Pixma printer, on heavyweight artist's paper. This is generally William Turner 310 gsm. from Hahnemuehle, the fine old German papermaker.
While I am fond of the intimate scale of photographs you can hold in your hands (as with the A3Plus format), these images were meant to be printed (and seen) a bit large, or quite large. At native resolution of 300ppi, these images average about 70 x 90 cm. (around 28" x 36", an area almost five times larger than on A3Plus), and are sharper than the human eye can perceive. They could well be 140 x 180 cm. (at 150ppi) with little or no perceptible loss, but as a matter of principle I will not release any prints larger than their native dimensions. Sized to fit the A3Plus format, they of course lose nothing - in fact they are crystalline. (I have always admired the passionately-observed hyperrealism of the Van Eycks, for example.)
I have divided each edition between prints made reduced to A3Plus, and prints at the larger native dimension. That is, for example, of an edition of ten signed and numbered prints, I may make five on A3Plus artist's paper and five at native size, or four and six, or seven and three, etc., but never more than ten in all. The photographs in this section of the site are limited to editions of ten signed and numbered prints.
For more information about the procedure (and about what brought me to it), see the last menu item, "Deep-Focus Still-Life - Essay", whose full (neo-Victorian) title is "Deep-Focus, High-Definition Still Life with the Digital Camera – An Introductory Essay". Grouped with the Artist's Statements are two related articles. "High-Definition, Deep-Focus Still Life" goes into a bit more depth than the above essay. "Step by Step Instructions" is just that, and tells you more than you probably want to know.
© 2014 Allen Schill. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or used without prior written permission from the author. Anyone is welcome to link to it, or to quote brief passages, but I would like to be notified.