Our Personal Work
We are busy upgrading the site. Please, excuse any inconsistencies.
Four of us have included, in the Portfolios, under Our Personal Work, images that reflect our special interests. Many were made in our own time, some on commission, some just for fun. They have in common at least that they are not the images that we make in order to earn our bread and butter. Most are for sale; we'd love to know that someone else likes them as much as we do - and is willing to pay to have them!
In most cases, the images you see on this website are representative of wider collections of similar or related work, and the photographer will often be more than willing to undertake commissions to make new, similar images specifically for you. Embedded in the text below you will find some of our work, but to see most of it you should turn back to Our Personal Work.
To assist you, each photographer has an Artist's Statement below, which includes (at least) a general description of the images in the Portfolio. We would be very happy to provide you with more details or help you to find other images that you would like to own, and provide you with pricing. We would also be very happy indeed just to talk or correspond about what we are photographing for ourselves - and why we do it.
EMILY CARLSON
I
love taking walks and it's only natural that I grab my camera as a buddy
for most walks (sometimes I take my husband too). There is something about
the natural lighting that always seems to pull my attention towards color,
natural design, and especially texture.
I use several different cameras for my personal work: 35mm, medium format, large format (view camera), and digital. Most of the nature work was shot with either a 35mm SLR or digitally with a good portion of the images being shot with a macro lens. I just adore the fine details nature provides.
Images in this series have been taken at various local and state parks including Frankfurt Springs, Ohio Pyle, Frick Park, Moraine, and Dolly Sods, WV. In addition to state and local parks, Rails to Trails has aided in my search for subjects.
FRANK HENY
When I have the chance to photograph a person - or people - whether on the street, in an airport, at a wedding or in the studio, I feel that is more fun than anything else in the world. People of any sort are a wonderful challenge. But when slower, less mobile or immobile subjects, natural or made by humans, turn up in front of my camera I love to work on them. They're just different.
I use several kinds of cameras: old 35 mm film ones, medium format, large format, digital. Ask about an image and I can probably tell you with certainty a good deal about it. Contact me for information about any of my personal work.
1. People
When
I first bought a camera I had little interest in photographing anything
but people going about their business. I was traveling all over the country
and often to Europe, spending hours in airports and wandering the streets
of strange cities with time to kill. I photographed almost everybody who
attracted my attention as unobtrusively as I could! There is one great
difference between wedding photography and street photography: at a wedding
most everyone wants to be photographed while in the street most don't.
You learn to be quiet and understanding and sensitive. And despite the
differences, that prepares you for wedding photography!
The images in this Portfolio were mostly made on those journeys, between about 1985 and 1988. Most are already hand-printed on fiber paper, mostly as 8" X 10" images. They are, however, easily available in other sizes. Prices are negotiable. They are all made on film, either 35mm or medium format.
Contact me for more information.
2. Changing Pittsburgh
The
images in these Portfolios (and the Flash display below) were made on
large format or medium format Tri-X film and are available as archival
prints enlarged by hand on fiber-based paper in our own darkroom. Many
are already printed at 16" X 20", matted or ready for matting
and framing. They are priced at $250 - $450 plus 7% PA Sales Tax where
applicable. We can ship the photographs. Smaller prints are available
or can be made to order at $150 - $275 for an 11" X 14" print,
$85 - $150 for an 8" X 10". For more information about individual
photographs, or to know if I have others available of similar subjects,
please contact me.
a. The Andy Warhol Series
These Photographs are a small sample from the very extensive series commissioned and supported by the Carnegie Museums, documenting the construction of the Andy Warhol Museum on the North Side.
In
addition to many hundreds of images of the changing interior and exterior
fabric of the former Frick and Lindsay building, the panorama at the head
of each page of this website, which includes the developing Andy Warhol
Museum in the right foreground, was part of the project. It was taken
in 1992 from the roof of the same building from which a similar panoramic
photograph had been made in 1913. In the earlier image, now in the archives
of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, the parking lot was an extensive
stable. That whole lot has now been totally covered by high-rise commercial
buildings and hence this view of the city has been lost.
b. The Homestead Series
This work, including the display just above, was photographed between about 1990 and 1996 in Homestead and Braddock, during the dismantling of the steel mills. The images shown here were shot on black and white Tri-X film, using medium and large format cameras. I have an extensive collection of related work, a good deal also photographed in color. There are many large hand-made prints of the black and white images already in our studio. The Homestead Series has been shown several times; it is of considerable historical and local interest as an in-depth record of the end of an era in the history of this city.
This work was commissioned and supported by Park Corporation, the owners and developers of the property, at that time, who wished to document the past and the end of these mills, which had played so central a role in the history of Pittsburgh. I hope the images convey a little of the grandeur of these buildings and will serve as a memorial to the people who worked in them.
3. The Landscapes
Some of these landscapes were made in the South and in New England, others in Western Pennsylvania. Each is briefly identified by place in the relevant portfolio, and I may be able to provide more specific information about some.
4. Hand-Colored Animals
The works in this Portfolio are hand-painted photographs. Each was taken in black and white with a manual 35mm camera, and the negative was printed on heavy 20" x 24" fiber-based paper with a matt surface. The printed photograph was then painted with special oil colors which were rubbed in and blended. This can take hours, even days, to finish, but the paint cannot be reworked or added to once it has dried beyond a certain point. The finished photograph is sprayed after the paint has totally dried, to set it and render the coloring permanent. It's a lot of fun, and allows you to think out of the box - but inside the lines! The resulting images make great house-pets. They'll give you very little trouble!
These unique photographs are for sale. If an image you like is already sold, I can make a similar (though of course not identical) painting. There are many more of these large crazy painted animals already finished in the studio. We can send small image files of existing paintings to help you choose.
The 20" x 24" original images sell for $350 each plus 7% PA Sales Tax where applicable. They can be shipped anywhere. In addition to the large originals, small digital reproductions on metallic or matt paper are available at $50 - $75 plus tax. (They, of course, are not unique!)
5. Flowers and Natural Things
The two black and white milkweed studies that open this Portfolio were made with my first camera, a Pentax ME, in 1985. The rest, light-hearted flower and plant photographs have all been made in recent months with our new digital cameras. They would be lovely - and inexpensive - displayed as 5" X 7" ($50) or 8" X 10" ($75) prints, though the resolution of these images would certainly permit larger printing. I can quote for larger prints. Many more images are available! New images will be placed on the site from time to time.
JAMES WOOMER
Although most of my professional work involves photographing people, which I enjoy, my personal work takes me on a different path, literally, exploring and photographing the various wild regions and trails of Pennsylvania. Between the months of April and October I spend a great deal of my free time backpacking and camping, accompanied by my two dogs (more about them later) and armed with a couple of cameras, one digital for shooting color and the other one, an older medium format camera loaded with black and white film.
During the day I enjoy photographing quiet studies of nature; a small bud blooming, a puffy white cloud against a brilliant blue sky, an old tree just hanging on, or a massive rock formation, which makes me small. At night the fire rules. I find the brief wild fury of a campfire very interesting in both thought and imagery. Almost all nature photographs are beautiful in their own right but for me these images serve a higher purpose. Each one is a unique memory of a specific time and place.
During the long dreary winters of Pittsburgh they serve to remind me that life doesn't end when the Steelers season does (not totally anyway). In fact springtime, with the vibrancy and freedom it brings, is always right around the corner.
Pets
This portfolio is mostly a playful collection of my own best friends both past and present. The dogs named Cleo and Jake are the brave traveling companions mentioned above.
Nature
The images in this portfolio were taken at various state forests including Gallitzin and Elk, and The Allegheny National Forest.
View the images in these Portfolios.
Malgorzata Mosiek
Information to come.