“Being able to express a form with line, luminance and texture, as opposed to all of the emotional and recognition cues that colors carry, is integral to my work. Colors like to stimulate memory, and so if you are attempting to show something familiar in a new way, color can tend to stimulate the part of the brain that substitutes memory for seeing. This can be at odds with the goal of seeing things in a fresh way.” Jason Brunner

Jason Brunner, a professional photographer from Utah, is a serious devotee of great B&W photography, but like Clyde Butcher, he has fun with his serious large-format work. Just check out his videos about traditional photo techniques and darkroom work, via his Web site:

http://www.jasonbrunner.com/

Jason was kind enough to tell us about his approach, share some of his work and photos of his very cool darkroom.

Tell us why you are so dedicated to B&W, and to film and traditional darkroom: 

I work with traditional photographic materials because that’s the medium I have chosen within the photographic arts, just as one might choose oils vs. watercolors, or stone vs. bronze in regard to painting and sculpture. My mentors and heroes accomplished their art in this particular photographic medium, and so I study in that tradition and continue to evolve my own voice from that place. 

I find the darkroom to be a cathartic and creative workspace, a place that is in tune with my sensibilities.

I’m not in a rush. I’m trying to do my part to pass on and add to the tradition of my medium. The YouTube videos and the Intro to the Darkroom DVD are part of that effort. (Go to his Web site for these videos, and other great content/ items:

http://www.jasonbrunner.com/)

Clearly you’re someone who is drawn to the expressive power of B&W: Can you talk about why it has such a pull for you?:

For me, black and white offers a compelling way to get to the heart of a finite visual pattern.

Being able to express a form with line, luminance and texture as opposed to all of the emotional and recognition cues that colors carry, is integral to my work. Colors like to stimulate memory, and so if you are attempting (at least in part) to show something familiar in a new way, color can tend to stimulate the part of the brain that substitutes memory for seeing, and so can be at odds with the goal of seeing things in a fresh way.

This is a shortcut our brains have evolved, to save us from having to examine familiar things over and over, and that is precisely opposite of what I’m about. I want the print to help the viewer to consider things, maybe in a way that they haven't since childhood. Using film and darkroom processes, working toward the print as the final goal, and being able to guide that process by my own hand all the way through to the mounting is also very important to me. I didn’t really begin to understand B&W until I began to understand the color spectrum and how different colors, stocks, filters, and even papers effected B&W tones. So I feel B&W really isn’t exclusive of color, just a different way to interpret it. I prefer to think of B&W as a distillation of color.

Who are your B&W heroes?

I've always been enthralled by Edward Weston. I’ve read practically everything ever written by, or about, him. I most appreciated “Through Another Lens,” which is the Charis Wilson biography of her time with him.

Weston’s influence on me starts particularly with his concept of seeing, and how he communicated so much so deeply and so simply. With regard to craft, Ansel Adams will always be the first and foremost of my many mentors. Maybe that’s a cliché, but there are a lot worse places I could have started. I have always been at odds with the folks who think that being competent at a craft somehow stifles the ability to create art using that craft. This seems peculiar to photography, but maybe it isn’t. Per Volquartz has also had a tremendous effect on my printing and I hope to spend more time with him in the future. Avedon is another person who’s work I firmly enjoy, but I had to learn that. The first time I ever saw his work was jarring for me, to say the least. Perhaps the one I most enjoy is Danish photographer, Emil Schildt. I had wanted to travel over to spend some time with him this Fall, but wound up in Alaska photographing crab boats for a commercial client instead.

Do you exhibit?  If so, where?  Does your B&W sell well? 

I have had a few exhibits locally but I don’t feel I have assembled a unified body of work that would play well in a gallery. I’m working on that. When I make them available, I sell prints through my website every so often. Most of my prints are given to friends or traded with other photographers.  I haven’t made a really cohesive effort to market my prints as of yet.  I’m certainly not in this for the money, and can’t see being able to give up my day job, but I certainly would, if things ever got to that point. It would be liberating to say the least.

BELOW: Jason Brunner’s darkroom & a sequence of him processing a cyanotype.