Many contemporary photographers multiply their megapixels and digitally modify them in pursuit of greater image control, but Jim Fitzgerald of Ventura has gone 180 degrees in the other direction.

He makes black-and-white photos using a laborious process developed in the mid-1860s and large- and ultra-large-format view cameras that he builds himself, because “I have found that no other process has given me the quality, beauty and feeling that I can produce. … I see no other way to express myself,” he says.
The proof is in the printing, and Fitzgerald’s carbon transfer prints will be featured in July at the Buenaventura Gallery in downtown Ventura. “Symphonies of Light” is the title of the July 17-Aug. 11 solo show. The artist will be present 4-8 p.m. July 21 for an opening reception and from 5-8 p.m. Aug. 3 for Ventura’s First Friday Gallery Crawl.

A photographer since 1978, Fitzgerald says he shot landscapes and portraits in color with a 35mm film camera until 2000, when he began using large-format cameras and developing and printing his own black-and-white photos.
“I needed total control over the process to complete my vision,” he says, so since 2007 he’s been dedicated to carbon transfers. He says the 1864 method of making contact prints from negatives gives “total control of the image tonality due to the blending of pigments and manufacturing of transfer tissue unique to the artist’s vision.”

Applying and exposing the pigmented gelatin is tedious and exacting, he says. “Coating a batch of tissue is an all-day process. Tissue must dry at the proper humidity for two to four days, and it will take a skilled printer almost an entire day to make one or two final prints.”

But the archival images it yields convey minute detail even in the shadows and a three-dimensional relief appearance because of the varying thickness of the exposed gelatin medium, which they’re framed unglazed to display. Fitzgerald studied carbon transfer printing in field and darkroom workshops with two noted photographers, Per Volquartz and Vaughn Hutchins, who he says inspired some of his best work.

Fewer than 200 photographers in the world make this type of prints, says Fitzgerald, who now is among a handful of them qualified to teach the process.

Contact printing requires large sheet film negatives, so his tools of choice are a 1904 Seneca 8x10 camera, plus 8x20, 11x14 and 14x17 ones Fitzgerald has crafted from walnut. His subjects include traditional portraiture, still lifes, figure studies, landscapes and a long-term project documenting black oak trees in Yosemite Valley.

Fitzgerald’s award-winning prints are in several private collections and have been exhibited at venues throughout California, including the Yosemite Museum. Examples of the fine art prints can be seen on his website, www.carbonartphotography.com, but not to their greatest effect.

That will require a visit to the Ventura gallery for Fitzgerald’s show. The Buenaventura Gallery is at 700 E. Santa Clara St. and its hours are noon-5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays. For more information, visit the nonprofit Buenaventura Art Association’s website at www.buenaventuragallery.org.