Keeping Traditions Alive…..

Photography and I met up in the late 1950’s, when my father gifted me a Kodak Brownie that used 127 roll film. That was over 60 years ago and I am still in the journey, as Martin Sexton would say. While a freshman at Western Michigan University in 1970, waiting for my Western Civilization class to start and having some moments to kill, wandering around Sangren Hall brought me in contact with a student exhibition of black and white photography (as the art department was in this building at the time). I became fascinated and returned to gaze on numerous occasions as long as the show was hung. In retrospect, I am not sure that excitement has ever waned. As the years unfolded, I have experimented with many cameras, formats, films, etc., with black and white compositions being my mainstay. Three of my past homes have housed traditional darkrooms, where many hours were spent developing and printing work. With the advent of digital photography and the introduction of professional film scanners, I found myself continuing to develop negatives, but scanning them and post processing with Photoshop, instead of working with an enlarger, trays of chemistry, and photographic paper (and printing with professional Epson photographic printers). I made a brief and unrewarding foray into digital photography around 2006, which was fairly short lived (about four years). While I am not a film snob, I never warmed up to digital images in the same respect I have to analogue work. There is nothing quite like pulling a roll of negatives or a sheet of film from the development tank and holding them up to the light….like running downstairs to the Christmas tree with my brother at 3:00 A.M.

I have recently began pursuit of dabbling in alternative photographic processes, with an initial foray into making Cyanotype contact prints. This unique photographic art form was discovered in 1842 by the famous astronomer and chemist, Sir John Herschel. It is very much a hands on and multi-stepped process that results in one of a kind images on watercolor paper.

For the past 14 years, I have lived near Lake Superior in the far Western Upper Peninsula of Michigan-a pristine wilderness of incomparable beauty and peace. My home, Rauhallinen Farm, is a 101 year old stone Finnish farmhouse nestled in the woods and surrounded by countless perennial gardens of my making across the years. A place of peace, reflection, and welcoming. As you might imagine, the majority of my work involves wilderness landscape, but I have also been fascinated with historically significant architecture, and in particular, the many ruins here in the Upper Peninsula from the earliest mining and logging days.

I photograph every week of the year, and often, every day. The down side of that is never finding enough time to keep this website up to date…my priority being traveling and making images. Often on weekends, I will load multiple cameras, tripods, and film in the Jeep Gladiator and head out with no particular destination in stone. The Upper Peninsula is such that no matter which direction you head, it will immersed in beauty of mythical proportions. Enjoy your visit here, and by all means, if you are planning a photographic excursion to the Upper Peninsula, drop me a line and I will assist you with location ideas, depending on your interests. Enjoy your visit.

Kirt