Beth Moon

Beth Moon and I have been running across each other more and more frequently. I met Beth briefly through Mark Nelson when he was working with her on his Precision Digital Negatives system. I was also working with Mark (and still am) and ran by her place to take him out to dinner. Beth makes large digital negatives to contact print in platinum using Mike Ware's method - a process I find challenging even to read about!

If you're unaware of the nature of many of these historic processes, they are often only UV light sensitive, The fun side effect is you can work with ordinary incandescent bulbs on and see exactly what you're doing and who is doing what. Not requiring a darkroom, converted garages make an ideal place to set up your work area - the weather is pretty good in California and the cars don't mind staying outside. Beth declined to join us for dinner as she was fiercely focused on making prints. I saw a woman extremely engaged in making art.

When I talked to Beth - in our class on polymer plate photogravure that we took with fellow student Gitta Carnochan - I was impressed by her vision and direction in her printmaking. She looks for a process that expresses her view of how the image should be presented. I tagged along with her to a private (with me semi-private) workshop on oil printing with Larry Shapiro. Again, she was looking into a process to see the technique and determine whether the end result had merit for a future project.

I too often slip into the technical side of photography and do not spend enough time considering the goal in presenting the final image in the best way.

Beth is good for me.