Collection: The Western Gate: Signature Collection

"In the early 1970’s I attended Brooks Institute of Photography and gained a good technical knowledge of printing and in 1975 I discovered, quite unexpectedly, a method for hand-coloring black and white photographs which, to my knowledge, is not known or used by anyone else. Using a simple palette it produces a cross between a painting and a photograph. The result of the coloring, along with the subject matter, gives the pictures a timeless quality that never fails to please. Knowing how much adulteration there is in photography I have never divulged my technique. There are, to be sure, quite a few photographers who have done superb hand-colored black and white work, however, I stand alone in my method.

"I live in isolated coastal mountains in California overlooking a spectacular coastline, surrounded by a pristine, wild and powerful environment where I built my own small home using a free-form method of construction not normally used but giving me great artistic freedom. Utilities are not available and consequently the majority of my original prints were all made in a solar powered darkroom between 1980 and 2004 (some of the pictures on this site go back to 1974). It is from this world of unparalleled beauty, here and abroad, that my pictures have sprung.

"In 2004 I dismantled my darkroom. New pictures and reproductions are high quality giclee prints on fine art paper or canvas gallery wraps made from digital scans of the original film and or prints. New pictures, taken from 2007 on with a digital camera, are digitally printed yet still hand-colored then reproduced.

"My hand-colored pictures capture the essence of the subject and are done in natural light in an informal, candid fashion. My goal as a fine art photographer is to provide, through my method, an awareness of natural beauty as art in itself worth preserving and to give a sense of timelessness to all my subjects whether landscapes, people, wildlife or surfing."

 - Paul Kemnitzer