Black and white

While setting up my new photo gallery, I came across old jpegs of pictures I took back toward the end of the film and darkroom era. Here’s a sampling. All of these I shot, developed and printed myself.

One of the first pictures I took when I began photographing dance, and still one of my favorites. The lady in the air is Melonie Buchanan, one of the best dancers ever to study at Friends University in Wichita. The image was taken with a 4×5 Crown Graphic camera. The negative made excellent 16×20 enlargements, one of which was on display for many years at Lawrence Photo in Wichita.

When the 17-story Allis Hotel was finished in 1930, it was the tallest building in Kansas. It never did as well as expected financially, and it was eventually closed up for good in 1984. Twelve years later, the city council voted to demolish the building. Every photographer in Kansas was present in downtown Wichita on the early December morning when the building was imploded, including me. In the darkroom, I found that a solarized print brought out more detail than a straight print.

The pasque flower seed heads are every bit as interesting as the flowers are.

One Wichita lady wanted a castle of her own. She didn’t have the resources to purchase one in Europe, so she built a tower in her back yard. She did most of the work herself, calling in help only for things clearly beyond her capability. The negative was taken with the Crown Graphic, and it was printed as a cyanotype on silk.

Spotted at an SCA event years ago.