Scott Kuckler

The passion I have for silver gelatin photography was borne from a young age where I learned basic techniques in my high school darkroom and was later educated at the Art Institute of Boston, (now Lesley College), in advanced techniques including the Zone System and alternative processes. I worked professionally using this process colloquially referred to now as “film photography” briefly in Boston and subsequently between Munich Germany and Paris France throughout the 1990s. 

My work was published is many publications during this time in magazines like Marie Claire and Elle as well as for advertisements for various large companies. My clients also included various film production studios for whom I made film stills to make my living. My heart however always remained true to the creating art with my medium and finding new and unique ways of producing thought provoking imagery and unconventional prints. 

In 2003 I made the decision to return to the United States and settled in New Hampshire where I chose to focus on my work solely as an art form and make a living in an unrelated field which wouldn’t influence the direction my art would evolve.

To create my photographs I use traditional silver gelatin photographic materials, which were the industry standard until the advent of digital photography at the beginning of the century. The way that I use them however is in a very unconventional manner. 

Using largely expired, salvaged photographic materials obtained from defunct darkrooms the self invented technique I employ to develop and post process my negatives and prints veer away from the conventional approach where a photograph is a window to another world. Instead my aim is to create photographs with color and texture that become their own object and change in the way they are seen depending on the angle of view or the light reflected from them. Through using toners and developers that are modified or self invented the otherwise black and white images are transformed into a work that has the feel of being handmade rather than produced from a machine. 

As Photoshop layering techniques and now artificial intelligence are becoming ubiquitous in the images we see every day and creating havoc in the public’s perception of reality, (or the denial of reality), my response has been to reimagine the possibilities of how the materials of yesteryear can be employed to create what a computer cannot. 

I choose to avoid using titles so that the viewer may draw their own personal associations to the work rather than being directed to a preconceived conclusion.

Several series of full color photographs, Masonry, Geothermal, Invertebrate and Nyctophilia in contrast are created with digital technology but also employ an unconventional approach to the medium.