In Celebration of Briar

The Story:

Here is a preview of photos from my new 2009 Calendar, “In Celebration of Briar.” This is the third year of the calendar, and I decided to do something a little different. This year's is in colour. Can you believe it?

I really love B&W photography, and am far more comfortable working in that mode, having been doing it for about 40 of my 50 years. Adding the more literal nature of colour created some different and interesting challenges for me. I still wanted to present the pipes in dramatic light, but also wanted their wonderful hues to be shown. In some cases, like Adam Davidson's remarkable Witch's Finger, at least at first glance, there's almost the sense of a monochrome photo, but then, the more subtle colours reveal themselves. In others, the colours are vibrant, as with the beautiful synthetic amber mouthpiece of Peter Heeschen's signature pipe. In every case, I hope the photos reflect the personalities of the pipes they depict.

Every pipe is unique, and so must be every photograph. Some of the pieces lent themselves to more conservative rendering, whilst others demanded a more interpretive approach. The setup and lighting alone can take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple hours. Most are lit with a single medium soft-box, with the rest of the light supplied by countless reflectors, little pieces of silver foil, small strips of white card, or black cards to "subtract" light. I don't rely on photoshop tricks to do this, prefering to work they way I did when film was my medium of choice for tabletop work. It's all done with light. Some habits are just slow to die.

It's been a great joy and a fascinating journey bringing this year's calendar together. The ovreall body of work has taken some interesting twists and turns since I started working on it in 2005. I'm looking forward to see where the project leads for next year.

As before, the calendar is available printed-on-demand from Lulu Press.