In the late 1970s, in Montreal, photography students were obsessed with getting deep blacks — “max black” — in our prints, squeezing the full range of tones out of our black-and-white photo paper.
Few of us realized there might be more to blackness than a lack of light.
We didn’t understand that in the right hands, the deep, deep blacks might speak to far more than a darkroom technique — to issues of race and segregation.
Four hundred miles south of us, in New York, Ray Francis was printing shots that had the bold shadows we were striving for.
Thirty-two of his prints are on view now in “Waiting to Be Seen: Illuminating the Photographs of Ray Francis,” at the Bruce Silverstein gallery in Chelsea, a posthumous show that is Francis’s first solo presentation.
Persons:
Ansel Adams moonrise, Ray Francis, ”, Bruce Silverstein
Locations:
Montreal, New York, Chelsea