JMx Photography

This was actually really exciting for me. First some back story. I mean really who is this Simon Larbalestier anyways?

Simon Larbalestier’s most widely distributed and popular work has been the lith prints that were featured in the liner notes of Pixies albums in the early 90′s. His work can be seen in the albums Surfer Rosa, Bossanova, and Doolittle as well as on his website. His imagery is haunting, other worldly, and just plain interesting. I’ve been captivated by them for coming up on two decades shortly. Part of the reason such an interesting look is the process he uses. Lith printing uses chemicals originally entended graphic arts work. Remember those old ads for X-Ray Specs that were kind of like pictures but kind of like classified ads in the backs of magazines and comics back in the 80′s (and earlier)? They use a special kind of film and developer. Well, Simon uses that developer to bring out that dark mood in his already surreal images.

This all ties into me because I’m a -huge- Pixies fan. I have all their albums, saw them in concert three times, bought the T-shirt. I dig them. Well I was looking at the liner notes a couple years ago and started wondering who shot those images. Well in the age of google it took all of a couple seconds to find out. Low and behold Simon was still selling prints of those images (linked above) and I bought one.

Then, earlier this year I started lith printing. As I was standing there in the eerie orangish glow of the darkroom light, watching my prints slowly emerge (it’s a long process compared to traditional b&w) I couldn’t help wondering if I was standing there because of Simon. I couldn’t tell if it was a 15+ year self fulfilling prophecy or serendipity that brought me to where I was right then. Either way, I’m hooked on the process.

A few weeks ago I got an email from Simon about an upcoming show that his work will be in, though I think it’s in the UK so I most likely won’t be attending. I took the opportunity to write him back and tell him breifly about how I ended up lith printing and how it involved him and I included a couple images of prints I had done. He wrote back and said he like the images, and inquired about my process, papers, developer, and other fun shop talk. This was just bizarre for me. Simon Larbalestier is sort of my lith printing icon (sorry Tim Rudman and others) and I’m talking shop with him! We exchanged a few emails and I did my best not to get all “Omg, omg, omg…” on the guy. He gave me some pointers and insights into what he does and how things have changed since he started. It was really cool for me, and I think him as well. It also underscores the idea of not waiting to tell people how they’ve impacted your life, even if they don’t know they have. You might get the chance to have a cool exchange with one of your personal icons.

Just for fun, here is some of my lith work:

I shot this picture with a 1950′s press camera, using a WWII arial recon lens, on a discontinued film, Polaroid Type 55. The whole rig must weigh close to 20lbs. I love using traditional photography tools. It really reaffirms one’s understanding of photography to go out with one sheet of film, take a picture, walk away and wait a couple hours to see how it turned out. For those familiar with this type of polaroid film, I didn’t pull it on the spot because the negative has to soak in a tray of water directly afterwards and I didn’t have that with me. Then I went to the gym and didn’t process the film until I got home.

I also really enjoy photographing old, abandoned structures. These structures are often at the end of their lifespan and will be destroyed, forgotten, and consumed by time. I feel like capturing them on last time on a medium that can stand the test of time is a worthwhile endeavor.