The idea of a third portfolio began percolating sometime in 2018. It had been 15 years since Portfolio II and major changes had happened in that time. The biggest being the shift from analog to digital and with it for me, a shift from black and white to color. I didn’t so much as step away from black and white as I embraced color, something I did little with artistically in my early days largely because there was no method to make color prints that were archival or aesthetically acceptable. But now instead of a messy, wet, chemical darkroom, I had a digital darkroom and an archival color printer to render prints. It all became easy. Too easy actually. Once conceived, this portfolio came together in a matter of days. The only laborious part was cutting mats. I used the same lipped shell portfolio box, lined with Italian marbled paper and basically created the same look as Portfolios I and II. But this time I didn’t call Paul to see if he wished to acquire more work. It had been a while since his last acquisitions of my work, and I had heard he wasn’t collecting any more. So, this one was for me. To celebrate my entry to the digital world. It is a curious collection of imagery, and a big departure from the work of my early years. And while I am very proud of this work, it seems less precious to me than the first two portfolios. Working digitally had changed my perspective of the world as an artist. It changed the way I worked, the way I saw things. Or perhaps it was working in color changed things for me. Or all the above. I am not totally sure. But what’s done is done. And even though I still have film and silver paper in my archives, I doubt I will ever return to the darkroom and the analog world.
