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It
was early May. The Taos Mountains of the Sangre de Cristo
range were topped with a late spring snow, resembling
a white tiara ringing the northern part of Taos, New
Mexico. In downtown Taos I turned my Toyota 4Runner
right onto Kit Carson Road, drove barely two-tenths
of a mile, then turned left onto Morada Lane. A polite
driver coming toward me pulled over and waited for me
to pass on the narrow lane. At the end of the lane is
the historic estate once owned by heiress, pacifist
and New York writer Mabel Dodge Luhan, and later by
actor and director Dennis Hopper. In the large, quaint
adobe surrounded by cottonwood trees, Mabel entertained
numerous celebrated artists, including painter Georgia
O’Keeffe, writer D.H. Lawrence, composer Leopold
Stokowsky and photographer Ansel Adams.
Just to the right of the Luhan
estate, now a bed and breakfast, is the elegant, contemporary
Chuck Henningsen Fine Art Gallery and Gardens. I had
met Chuck a few years ago when he took me on a tour
of his gallery and darkroom. Now, on this spring morning,
we sat down in the comfortable gallery space and the
gregarious and seemly ageless Chuck Henningsen talked
about his life and evolvement of his nearly 30-year
photographic career.
Chuck, now a renowned photographer
and master printer, was born in Des Moines, Iowa, where
he attended high school and graduated from Iowa State
University with honors and a degree in industrial engineering.
His first job in the 1950s was with the then-small firm
Hewlett-Packard-when Silicon Valley had only a handful
of high -tech companies. When Chuck left HP after four
years, he and two partners formed a company that manufactured
electronic raw materials.
Chuck's interest in photography
began in 1976 when he took a trip to Yosemite Valley,
wandered into the Ansel Adams Gallery (part of Ansel's
early home), and purchased his first photograph, and
Adams print for $200. Ansel, by this time was well known
and living in Carmel, California. He happened to be
Visiting Yosemite, and Chuck was invited to dinner with
Ansel, family and friends. Chuck recalls, "Ansel
was open and friendly." Chuck
was bitten by the photographer's bug. He bought a Hasselblad
system and later a 4x5 Sinar view camera, and began
taking classes with Ansel at Yosemite. At his first
class everyone had a portfolio to present except Chuck.
He felt embarrassed but persevered; he never looked
back. It was in these classes he learned the Zone system
and the basic techniques of photography and printing.
These classes were to be his only formal photographic
training. On his three acres in Portola, California,
he built his first darkroom in the guesthouse. In every
free hour from his company, he was in the darkroom printing
or creating photographs. From time to time he would
visit Ansel and show hi his latest photographs and receive
printing advice.
In 1983, on one of his many trips
to the Southwest, Chuck was photographing at a favorite
location, Canyon de Chelly in Arizona. His Navajo guide
told him about the well known Native American artist,
R.C. Gorman, who grew up in Canyon de Chelly and now
lives in Taos, so Chuck visited Taos and met the artist.
Chuck was fascinated at how much some of his Southwest
landscape photography mirrored Gorman's paintings. The
meeting was fortuitous and would change Chuck's life.
First, there would be a collaborative book venture featuring
Gorman's art and Chuck's extremely creative black-and-white
images of R.C., local Taos people, and church and Pueblo
architecture. They took a layout of the book to New
York, where several publishers wanted it. They settled
on Little Brown. The book was a big success selling
over 25,000 copies.
Secondly, Chuck fell in love
with the artistic community in the sleepy little town
of Taos. He sold the share of his company in California
and purchased the Luhan guesthouse and moved to Taos.
His engineering background was an asset when he bought
an adjoining five acres and built his underground 2500-square-foot
darkroom. It is complete with a high-tech, platinum
light source, a 50-ingch color processor, and E6 roller
transport processor, and a finishing area with a dry
mount press and laminator that can laminate up to 50x120
inch prints. Today Chuck prints up to 30x40-inch platinum/gum
prints, up to 50x120 inch Ilfochrome (Cibachrome) prints,
and up to 44x65-inch digital prints. A year after completing
the darkroom, he built a 4500-sqare foot modern house
on top of the darkroom. This is his living space, as
well as his gallery. A skylight runs the length of the
building, giving natural light in the gallery.
Platinum Printing
Chuck met photographer, Tom Millea,
the modern pioneer of platinum printing, who taught
him the art of platinum printing. Chuck explains, "Because
I feel that the process platinum emulsion offers geater
depth and subtleties thatn any other photographic process,
I have been hand crafting platinum prints for over 20
years. Six years ago, I added to the process by over-coating
the gum dichromate emulsion mixed with watercolor. Both
of these emulsions came on the scene in he late 1800s
and were discontinued in the 1920s because they could
only be contact printed. Today I print platinum/gum
prints with a600 watt high-intensity light source. Producing
a long scale, 30x40 inch negative is technical feat
that has taken me years to master. The platinum emulsion
is hand-coated on 100 percent mold-made rag paper, contact
printed, and dried. The gum dichromate/watercolor emulsion
is over-coated in single or multiple tones. The large
negative is reregistered, the print re-exposed, and
developed, thus allowing the colored emulsion to become
an integral part of the finished platinum print."
Photographic Collages
For year, Chuck says,"I
struggled with my love of modern art and the camera's
somewhat opposing penchant for capturing imagery with
detailed realism." The collage cutouts by French
Impressionist Matisse gave Chuck an idea. He began cutting
out shapes and arranging them in overlapping collages.
Next, he cut each shape into a mask that could be affixed
to the front of a view camera film holder. This would
allow him to capture only the imagery within that particular
shape. Then he could affix a different mask and photograph
a different fragment on top of the first. The final
sheet of film, with all its overlapping shapes, cold
contain as many as 30 exposures.
It would be slightly underdeveloped
in an E6 processor to pull down the high values where
the shapes overlap. The final, single transparency is
then printed on the beautifully saturated Ilfochrome
paper. Chuck calls this process abstract realism.
Solarization and Man
Ray
Years back, Chuck met Man Ray's
widow, Juliet, in Paris. After dinner one evening Juliet
took Chuck to see the small apartment she and Man Ray
had shared. It was jam-packed with Man Ray's creations.
Man Ray's unique solarization work inspired Chuck to
solarize black and white negatives, starting with nudes.
He discovered that solarizing the negatives of religious
sites or spiritual icons seemed t release the energy
built up over the ages of worship. Chuck comments, "Strange
things seem to happen when these negatives are solarized,
and as a result, all of my religious work is processed
this way. I'm anxious to resume touring the world's
great religious venues and plan to take an extended
trip in the near future to places like Angkor Wat in
Cambodia."
Digital Photography
"Whether we like it or
not, the digital age is upon us," chuck says."Kodak
no longer makes the graphic arts films essential to
platinum prints. The longevity of other wet photographic
processes is in question. My early digital work comprised
highly manipulated single nudes.
Today, Chuck makes digital prints
as long as seven feet, with as many as 21 layers, with
detail as fine as he achieved with optically produced
color collages. He uses a Nikon D100 for digital capture,
an Epson 3200 scanner and an Epson 9600 printer. Chuck
enjoys both antique and very modern photographic processes.
He continues to photograph landscapes several times
a year , using a Sinar or Linhof Super Technika view
camera, and generates five or six complex colored collages
annually. "The digital work is progressing in many
different directions. I like to innovate digital imagery
during studio down time, such as waiting for prints
to be processed or to dry. I like to let my mind wander
and allow my psyche to lead me where it wants. I go
into most shoots knowing I have several techniques in
my arsenal: straight platinum, solarized platinum, colored
collages and digital. I work hard to never prejudge
what's around the next bend. That allows the element
of surprise to fire up my creative juices."
Henningsen Fine Art exhibits
Chuck's creative, inventive and diverse prints as well
as works by Strand, Weston, Karsh, Uelsmann, up-and-coming
photographers, other artwork and modern sculpture. There
is also a print of Adam's famous photograph "Moonrise
over Hernandez, New Mexico." Chuck selected this
print from 25 Ansel presented to him to choose from
at his Carmel home.
Chuck's first one-man show was
in 1979. Since then, he has had almost 50, including
one at prestigious International Center of Photography
in New York. Today, he markets his work through galleries
around the nation.
Chuck shares his thoughts about
his artistic mission: "Creativity is a beast often
wild and unfettered, but many times also subtle and
elusive. Give it its head, and listen carefully to its
heart, and it will whisk you to thrilling places, hitherto
unimagined."
To see more of Chuck's work visit
his web site:www.henningsenfineart.com
Paul Slaughter is a world-traveled
photographer and writer who lives in Santa Fe, NM. Paul
specializes in location, stock and fine art photography
and writes on travel and photography. He has an extensive
photographic collection of the legends of jazz. Visit
www.slaughterphoto.com
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