Shooting with Wally Seawell's Deardorff camera

Prof. Dr. Wulf Herzogenrath - 8x10 Polaroid

Elimu Nelson

 
I made these portraits of museum curator Dr. Wulf Herzogenrath and actor Elimu Nelson with my prized Deardorff camera, circa 1937. The camera was a gift from silver screen era photographer Wally Seawell. Wally traveled the world photographing such film legends as Gregory Peck, Lana Turner, Elizabeth Taylor and Betty Davis with this 8x 10 Deardorff. My friend Wally worked as a photographer from the early 1930s until he passed at the age of 90 a few years ago.

 It's a great feeling working with a camera that has such history. It's like BB King's guitar.

Photographing German curator Wulf Herzogenrath in 2012 at The Getty Museum
in Los Angeles with Wally Seawell's Deardorff camera

artMRKT San Francisco 2013

Timothy Yarger Fine Art presents...

JIM McHUGH
Hollywood in Black & White

Selected Polaroid Type 55 photographs of historic Los Angeles architecture made by Jim McHugh between 1993 and 2007.

"Jim McHugh captures Los Angeles 

in a simpler time.  He evokes in these

luminous, elegant photographs the 

Los Angeles of our memories."

– Barbara Isenberg, author of Conversations with Frank Gehry

I’m so pleased that Tim Yarger chose these pictures to exhibit at artMRKT in San Francisco. These particular images were printed by my good friend and master printer Michel Karman, who has printed for the Getty Museum, the Whitney, Centre Pompidou, and the Louvre Museum in Paris. These are unique, hand-made images, all on silver gelatin double-weight paper. The close collaborative relationship between myself and Michel has guided the direction of this project from the very beginning. Michel understood what I saw and made it come to life in his darkroom. Whether digital or silver prints, we have bounced creative ideas off each other for more than 20 years. 

When I'm out there shooting, often in the dark, with my large Speed Graphic and a bucket of sodium sulphate, I can't help but think of the great French photographer Eugène Atget. Like myself, he spent decades capturing the vanishing landscapes of the city where he lived. Early French photography has been a huge influence. I am always looking at the pictures of Nadar, and of course, Gustave Le Gray. 

The images that Tim selected for San Francisco are Los Angeles and Hollywood architectural gems: the El Rey Theatre, Pantages Theatre and Capitol Records, Los Altos Apartments, 4^th Street Bridge, The May Company, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Eugène Atget photograph from his turn-of-the-Century work published as Unknown Paris

                                     

Gustave Le Gray, architectural photography, circa 1850s France

artMRKT San Francisco 2013 

May 16-19 

Fort Mason Center-Festival Pavillion
Timothy Yarger Fine Art - Booth 219 & 222