- I want to make sure that I get some separation
between these trees here.
Oh yeah.
That's gonna work.
When I was young, my father would take the family
to Yosemite and up into Oregon
and we'd go on vacations in the trees.
The trees many, many years ago took roots in my heart
and it's my main subject matter.
It's just something I absolutely love.
My name's Jim Fitzgerald.
I'm a large and ultra large format film photographer
and carbon transfer printer.
(melancholy orchestral music)
I specialize in a very historic process
that was developed in 1864.
You make a handmade, one of a kind print.
That's the most archival print that you can create.
About 13 years ago, almost 14 years ago now,
I was able to see my first carbon transfer print
in the flesh.
And I knew in that instant
it was a life-changing experience.
And to this day I have done nothing
but print carbon transfer, and that's all I'll ever print.
They're the most beautiful prints that you can ever imagine.
It's what I was meant to do.
I've had some wonderful moments with light,
and Mother Nature has given me
tremendous gifts over the years,
and being able to produce that
in a carbon transfer print is really something
that helps me express how I feel deeply inside.
It was actually perfected in 1864
by sir Joseph Swan out of England.
And there's no chemical in there.
Nothing that's going to hurt it.
It's hardened gelatin.
It will last a hundred lifetimes.
It's why it's the most archival print you can make.
You can make something that will outlive all of us,
so I was drawn to that fact.
Back in 2007 when I had just started
in carbon transfer printing
I spent a day in Yosemite Valley
best photographic day of my life.
And it started a lifelong project documenting
the black oaks in Yosemite Valley and how fragile they are,
and how they're fighting for their survival.
And then I just started working my way east
along this trail.
And I found imagery
that nobody else to my knowledge was seeing.
Every time I go out in the field
Beethoven's playing in my head.
So, I am in another world.
It allows me to open up my senses
and I don't even know where I go.
I have the entire collection of Beethoven.
It's all in my head.
(classical Beethoven music)
I finally shot my last sheet of film.
And I stopped and I'm like, where am I?
I was just in such a zone.
And I realized at that moment, I need to present this.
I want to do a book.
So I learned how to book bind.
I took original prints and printed them
on fine art watercolor paper.
And I developed a process to be able to print text
in carbon transfer and incorporate it into the book.
So, the first book, Survivors I
is basically my journey of that day
and my feelings for the imagery in the book.
But I love going back to the same areas
and seeing how the light has changed
how the environment has changed, how the scene has changed.
Sometimes some of the trees that I love are gone,
sometimes they're still there
and they're in a terrible state
and might be gone before I come back the next time.
And I look at it as a gift that I'm able to record these
before the process of life takes over.
I've always had a love of woodworking.
You think about cameras that were built
in the late 1800s, 1900s they're all built by hand.
So, how hard can it be?
I copied an old design
and I made a beautiful eight inch by 20 inch camera,
took me 18 months to build it.
As I look back on it into camera buildings lengthy process
exposures are lengthy exposures.
The handmade print is a lengthy experience.
What turns a lot of people off
is there's so much time invested.
We're in a society where everybody wants instant results
but as an artist,
any artist I would think is working to produce the best
that they can.
So for me, it just happens to be carbon transfer printing
and it takes a little longer to do.
You couldn't have timed it any better.
So, I got a phone call out of the blue and I'm like,
"Okay, who is this?"
We got a spot.
This is it.
Logan Clark, he's just a really, really wonderful young man.
This is a good spot, the way the backlight's coming
and hitting everything over here.
- The cool thing is you just wait 10 minutes
and it's going to change.
- Oh yeah.
He saw some of my work
out at the LightBox Photographic Gallery in Astoria, Oregon.
- It was a group show
and he just had this print downstairs about,
you know 8 by 20, Merced River frozen,
it's just amazing.
And I just looked at it and I go, "Oh my God."
You know, "I need to learn how to do this."
- You just follow the shadows
and the shadows pull you right into the image.
I gave him the basics of how everything's done, no secrets.
And he took that ball and ran with it.
(classical Beethoven music)
I couldn't be more proud of what he's produced.
- You spend five minutes with this guy
and you're going to know how passionate he is.
I mean, when he's photographing
when he tells you there's Beethoven in his head, it's real.
("Piano Sonata No. 14")
- This just has an old world feel to it.
The lens I use on it helps to capture that feeling.
Having Logan as the tour guide so to speak,
he had mentioned Lucia Falls
and there were so many beautiful little pockets
in areas that were visually stunning.
I saw this little forested area kind of
off to the left of the trail.
It was a little own, little microclimate all by itself.
And it was a young forest.
It was evolving.
And I thought, wow, this is just a story waiting to be told.
Oh yeah, this is like epic.
I'm just going to get another meter reading.
That's been a favorite spot of mine,
because there's so many different ways
to interpret that little forest
that I know I'll be working that
for a long time to come.
All right.
I always pay homage to Mother Nature
and it may not be vocally,
but mentally I'm always thanking Mother Nature
for the gifts that she gives me.
(classical Beethoven music)
- You need to interpret the way you feel
about that image yourself, which I find I love that.
And generally that feeling of melancholy,
soft focus, old world style
seems to resonate a little bit more with me
than the very sharp imagery.
What I'm doing here is to see how much pigment
is still coming off.
You can see pigment running down here.
We stick it back in the water for a little bit.
The wonderful thing about it is if you get everything right
you can develop a textured relief print
which is very unique to this process.
And that is because the gelatin melts away
less in the shadow areas and more in the highlight areas.
So you have a three-dimensional relief.
So this is a very thick area, this is a very thin area
because basically you're developing away
almost to paper white.
When you get it right,
the prints have depth and a feeling of uniqueness
that is very hard to describe.
Once that gelatin dries,
you have nothing environmentally or chemically
that will harm that image for its lifetime.
It's permanent.
So, if you make a good print
it's going to be around forever.
If you make a bad print
it's going to be around forever as well.
(classical Beethoven music)
For me personally, I like to keep my art form
as close to the purity of the way it was
back in the early days.
There's no going back once you click that shutter,
and more people are getting into it and that's great,
'cause we're going to keep it alive.
Look at the glow on the moss up there in this tree.
Wow.
You know, it just comes alive.
- Brings that warm glow.
- You know, I know you like the falls.
You know me, trees are in my heart.
So, it's like--
- We have a great friendship.
And I sure appreciate all he's given me.
And I plan on taking that torch, you know,
when it's my time and someone knocks on my door.
- And it makes me so happy to know
that I've passed along
something I absolutely love to somebody younger,
a different generation
that's going to help keep it alive when I'm gone.
And that's really special to me.