Surface Tension: Landscapes by Ben Nixon

Surface Tension: Landscapes by Ben Nixon

Photographer Ben Nixon admires the aesthetic quality of nineteenth-century masters of wet-plate photography—the photographic process of using light-sensitive emulsion on glass plates to produce negatives. He pays homage to the tradition of hand-made, process-oriented photography by creating cloudy-edged prints reminiscent of nineteenth-century Western landscape photographers like Timothy O'Sullivan and Carleton Watkins. Nixon prefers to make wet-plate negatives rather than process film or make proofs.

Nixon prefers to work with materials that are collaborative and engaging. The wet-plate process allows serendipity to creep into the image-making process, forming a well-organized improvisation during developing in the field or in the darkroom. "I still have control over the four edges of the frame, depth of field, and focus," Nixon explains, "but the elements of nature play a certain roll in the making of each negative."

Nixon adheres to Ansel Adams's philosophy of absolute craft and the zone system–a photographic technique for determining optimal film exposure and development originally formulated in 1941. His work is created in the tradition of the pioneers of American landscape photography. Nixon's tribute to the past is evident in the immediacy, composition, and lush details presented in his contemporary photographs

Photography is not permitted.
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