– letters from the forest –
“Printing in Layers”
Printing in Layers
Before Magnolia Sage Studio.
Before digital stock libraries and brand kits.
Before trenches in the forest and solar panels on the hill.
There was an 8×10 camera.
There were trays of developer.
There was gum bichromate.
In college, I fell deeply in love with antique print processes — especially gum bichromate printing. It’s a contact printing method where the final image is only as dark as the watercolor pigment brushed into each layer. So you build it slowly. One hand painted layer at a time.
Expose. Wash. Dry. Repeat.
A single print could take an entire day.
I was shooting large format — sometimes 8×10 — as well as medium format 120 film with only nine frames per roll. The technology demanded restraint. It required composition. It forces you to slow down and observe before pressing the shutter.
This process shaped the mindset.
I learned how to duplicate 35mm and 120 negatives into larger film stock so I could create larger gum prints. Eventually, I was producing four-colour separation negatives and building four-layer gum prints by hand. It wasn’t efficient. It wasn’t fast. But it was layered, painterly, and intentional.
American Photography Seven
Shortly after graduation, one of those gum bichromate works was selected for publication in American Photography. It was an international juried competition — a rigorous submission process reviewed by a prestigious panel of judges. My work was published alongside photographers I had long admired. That moment mattered.
Not because it made me famous.
But because it affirmed that slow, experimental craft still had a place in a modern photographic world.
After graduation, there wasn’t a strong commercial call for gum bichromate prints. But agencies were fascinated by the discipline and creative thinking behind the process. That layered mindset opened doors in advertising and commercial work in ways I hadn’t anticipated.
Then technology evolved again.
analog & digital
By the early 2000s, new film stocks allowed me to print digital files as negatives. I could scan my film — even digital images — translate them in Photoshop, output them onto transparent film using dry darkrooms (aka ink jet printers), and continue making large gum prints without hauling around an 8×10 camera.
Analog roots.
Digital bridge.
Handmade result.
And then — fifteen years later — those early fine art pieces were included in the Folio Revisited exhibition at the Whyte Museum in Banff. My prints hung among artists whose work had shaped the medium — Yousuf Karsh, Michael Kenna, Henri Cartier-Bresson (my actual photo hero’s — pinch me it really happened).
Standing in that space, I felt something steady.
Not pride.
Not ego.
But continuity.
The work endured.
Whyte Museum – Folio Revisited Exhibit,
Collection of 5 – 8×10 Gum bi Chromate Prints
I’ve felt that original rhythm return.
Recently, living small in the woods, I’ve felt that original rhythm return.
When you build a home off-grid, nothing is rushed. Every decision carries intention. Every system is considered. You pause before acting. You build for longevity, not speed.
It feels familiar.
It feels like the darkroom.
And I think that’s why I’m sharing this now.
Because the forest has brought me back to my earliest way of thinking — observe, compose, layer, refine.
Magnolia Sage Studio is built from that backbone.
Layered thinking.
Intentional composition.
Refinement over rush.
Whether I’m crafting a brand kit, photographing a family, designing stock collections, or building a home in the woods — I approach it the same way I approached those gum prints.
Layer by layer.
With care.
For the long term.
I never really left the darkroom.
I just changed tools.
