 Chuck
Henningsen began his photographic career inspired by
Ansel Adams. He first met Adams in Yosemite in 1976
while visiting the Ansel Adams Gallery. Henningsen’s
background in the hi-tech industry intrigued Adams who
was always fascinated by technology. Adams invited Chuck
to attend his workshop in June in Yosemite.
“I was the only student without a single print
to show,” stated Henningsen. “I fell in
love with the people more than the art form,”
he remembers. “They were kinder and more sensitive
than the people I knew in the business world.”
It was shortly after that experience that Henningsen
bought his first 4x5 camera and started taking landscape
photos of the Southwest.
During one of his visits to New Mexico he met the painter
R.C. Gorman and began a series photographing artists.
From that point his interest in art began increasing.
“I tried to figure out what I could do that would
be different from straight landscape photography.”
After going through a series of solarizing figures and
landscapes he began to wonder about multiply exposed
color photographs.
“I use masks to cover the front of the film holder
and make several exposures onto one sheet of film for
each image—see sample left (ed. note: the masks
need to be exposed and processed sheets of film. Unexposed
film is not dense enough to hold back the light in some
situations and, of course, unexposed but processed film
is essentially clear.).
“My first scenes were landscapes but they did
not fit together very well. The shapes were too random.
I then went to New York and used architecture as the
subject.”
The first pieces were very linear and everything was
in the shapes of triangle, rectangles and squares.
“Matisse has always been one of my favorite artists
and he has undoubtedly been an influence. After awhile
the work began to evolve into curves and rounder shapes,”
stated Henningsen.
 Henningsen
now has three or four boxes of pre-cut shapes. He finds
a location and begins to work with Polaroid material
to make singe images. He may then take a series of these
done with different masks and make sketches before returning
to the site the next day or night.
Chuck uses transparency film for his exposures and then
prints on Ilfochrome. The Ilfochrome material is inherently
contrasty and many people using it make printing masks
to help control the contrast. Henningsen prefers to
slightly overexpose his film and cut back on the development
to minimize the contrast. (ed. note: the time in the
first stage of the E-6 process can be altered to change
the contrast of the final image). However, when making
multiple images on the same sheet of film it is also
necessary to cut back on the exposure for each one so
some trial and error is necessary to master this  technique.
The average number of exposures per scene is seven or
eight.
“What makes the images challenging is the intersection
of one layer over the other. This is not always something
you can predict.” stated Henningsen.
Photography is an interesting medium for Henningsen.
At one point in the interview he stated, “The
medium is so limiting in terms of what it does and doesn’t
do. It is so easy to get caught up in the technical
aspects of what we do.” Yet, later he stated,
“The advantage of photography is that it can be
like a painting but with more intricacies.”
Henningsen’s equipment is a 4x5 camera and two
lenses, a 135mm and a
250mm.
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