Printing Abstract Masterpieces with Jack Durner (Podcast 680)

by Martin Bailey | Oct 7, 2019 | Interview, Podcast, Printing

Today I’m really happy to be able to bring you a conversation with Jack Durner, the artist behind some beautiful abstract photography that I had the pleasure of printing recently. Jack commissioned me to print 12 large prints which we decided to create on Breathing Color’s Silverada Metallic Canvas and stretched with 1.75″ deep stretcher bars.

I realized as soon as I saw Jack’s work that I had to interview him for the podcast, so I grabbed a few photos of Jack with his work as we prepared the prints. His first four prints were 20 x 30-inch gallery wraps created on a one-to-one Pixels to Pigment workshop weekend, as Jack wanted to learn more about color management and the printing process.

We then did another few hour session to create the fifth 20 x 30-inch gallery wrap to complete this set of five, and then around 10 days ago, Jack came back for two more days to create seven more prints, all very wide or very tall, the tallest of which being 60-inches. I’ll add a gallery of images from these sessions below.

The Interview

As the interview was not scripted as such, I won’t share a transcript, but here is a brief outline of the questions that I asked Jack during our conversation.

• Tell us about yourself. How did you get into photography?
• What brought you to Japan?
• Tell us about the images that we’ve just made all of your large format prints of. What led to you making your first image in that style?
• Talk a little about the process in Photoshop. What sort of things do you do to your images?
• Do you have any advice for people that are still searching for their own photographic style?
• How much time does each image take approximately?
• Where can people go to see your work? Exhibitions, web site? (Details below…)

Before and After Images

Here are two sets of before/after images to show you the transformation that takes place as Jack applies his magic to the base images. Click on the images to open them in the light box.

Making the Prints

And here is a series of images from our second final session to make the seven larger prints. Again, click on a thumbnail to open the images in the light box.

Additional Information

Note that at around 8:40 where Jack couldn’t recall the name of a Photoshop element, it was a Smart Object. He recalled this literally the moment I pressed the stop button on the recording.

A number of times during our conversation we mentioned a photographer named Brian Wood-Koiwa, and you can see his work on his website and Instagram.

Details of the Shibamata Art World exhibit that Jack mentioned can be seen here.

Jack’s website is http://www.jackdurnerphoto.com and you can see his beautiful abstract work on Instagram here.

I hope you enjoyed this conversation and Jack’s work.

Show Notes

Jack’s website: http://www.jackdurnerphoto.com

Music by Martin Bailey

Audio

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