Chris McCaw (by Ilya Tetelman)

This artist's name is Chris McCaw. I chose to write about Chris for several reasons. Not only do I find his "Sunburn" Series impressive and inspiring, the occurrences and methods by which he got there are as unusual as at the work itself.

Sunburn is a set of images coming directly from the camera (which McCaw built himself) on which two magical phenomenon occured: 1. the path of the day's sun burned a hole in the photograph. 2. Because of the excessively long exposure times, Solarization has turned the original negative image into a positive.

Chris discovered these effects on a drunk long night exposure that was left open as a result of his inotoxication (if only all results of intoxication were that successful the next day!). Being open still at sunrise, the sun burned a hole through the solarized negative. Recognizing this gem for what it was, he began working to perfect a set of images. Only after three years (probably because of excessive drinking) he realized he should switch to Photo Paper instead of film, but he realized quickly that the paper needed to get the solarization was VINTAGE SILVER GELATIN PAPER.

Also aiding him in catching these mystical interactions between nature and machine, was his ability to build his own camera. He learned to build his own camera through necessity, when he was too poor to buy his own after finishing art school. Shown above, his current set of cameras, one sized at 30x40 and one at 8x10 (but with a massive lens), look like something funded by NASA. The 8x10 wheelchair camera has a 600mm F/3.5 lens that Chris "was told... came off a U2 spy plane."

For more information, I will trackback two websites:

A short interview blog post: http://is.gd/gUCl1

Chris's Artist Statement: http://is.gd/gUCnL