As many photographers and artists know, the materials at hand for making art can be a unique source of inspiration. So it is with Margaret McCarthy’s series of photographs now exhibiting at the Red Filter Gallery.
After recently moving my studio, I re-discovered early prints of mine made on Agfa’s Portriga Rapid paper – once renown for its remarkable shadow detail and the richness of its maximum density black or “d-max”. These travel images recall for me my time of discovering and falling in love with the magic of photography as I learned its craft; and I can now see that I was always drawn in my travels to places of antiquity. I love digital processes and the creative freedom and expansion they give me; yet these prints on Portriga are something “other” to me and not necessarily meant to be compared with digital materials. Simply put, they are from a different world.”
