ADVERTISING FEATURE


Paul Gallagher comes out of the darkroom for Digigraphie


Paul has an unusual way of expressing his long-held passion for photography. ‘It’s a life sentence,’ he says. In many ways, it’s an apt description, indicating, as it does, a total absorption in the medium – to the exclusion of almost anything else. A case in point is his recent midwinter photographic trip to Wester Ross, in Scotland. ‘I walked onto the beach at 9am. The sun was just rising and the saltwater pools were frozen over. I left the beach at 4pm, and I hadn’t stopped photographing that whole time. While it’s going on, you don’t recognise that you’re working.’


It comes as no surprise, then, to learn that Gallagher is never happier than when he is standing in front of his wooden 5x4in field camera, in the middle of some of the UK’s finest wilderness. ‘Going under the dark cloth and leaving the elements behind – it’s like going into the darkroom,’ he muses.


Scots Pines - Paul Gallagher


was prepared to compromise. But digital prints have now reached a point where they can’t be discerned from silver prints.’ To back this up, Gallagher tells of an exhibition he held recently, after which he was contacted by someone who told him how pleased he was to see that Gallagher had chosen to exhibit silver prints. Except they weren’t silver prints at all. For Gallagher, this was assurance enough that not only had his darkroom skills stood him in good enough stead to produce digital prints that were of equal quality, but that his products of choice were up to the job, too.


The darkroom to which he refers was his second home for more than 20 years. It is where he honed his craft and developed his understanding of the power of the monochrome image. The skills he practised and perfected there are the same as the skills he uses now, as a digital printer. ‘My transition from the darkroom to using Epson printers was a slow, considered one,’ he reveals. ‘It had to be, because neither the print quality nor its longevity were things I


With this, however, came a problem, as Gallagher explains: ‘People always ask whether my digital prints are of archival quality. I know they are – I wouldn’t have moved on from the darkroom if they weren’t – but until now there hadn’t been a generalised, recognisable benchmark that everyone could understand.’


This is why Digigraphie works so well for Gallagher. It levels the playing field in the art-world’s face-off between darkroom and digital, and gives buyers of photographic prints a recognisable emblem of reassurance. ‘Until Digigraphie,


For more information the Digigraphie programme, please visit www.epson.co.uk/digigraphie or www.digigraphie.com/uk


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MASTER PHOTOGRAPHY 28


I couldn’t offer a guarantee that a Paul Gallagher digital print was of a particular standard – I had to explain every time about the reliability of the materials I was using. But what Digigraphie offers me is the opportunity to say I’m part of a programme that promises the processes I use are of a certain standard. It means that when people purchase my fine art photographic prints, they won’t have to ask the same questions they used to, because they will have the reassurance of the Digigraphie stamp.’


It all contributes to the ongoing excitement and pleasure Gallagher derives from photography as a whole. ‘I’m amazed that at the age of only 43, I already have an old hat on as far as monochrome photography goes,’ he explains, ‘but I’m still young enough to be gleefully involved in digital. We have wonderful tools that we can use to convey our experiences – and I am happy to embrace everything about it as it moves forward. I can explore the wonders of the digital world, but without forgetting that, in its most basic form, all I’m doing is gathering light and tiny slivers of time, translating them into two dimensions on paper, and hoping that people get it. It’s an obsession, and it will never leave me.’


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