March 29, 2023
Analogue in Black and White: A Photographer’s Journey
Andrea Baldeck
Freelance Photographer
Andrea Baldeck and Richard Trenner (introducer)
Minutes of the 25th Meeting of the 81st Year
John Cotton presided over the meeting. Julia Coale led the invocation, and Owen Leach read the minutes of the preceding meeting. There were four guests. Rob Fraser introduced his guest, Dulcie Bull, who is applying for membership. Richard Trenner introduced his guests, Maureen Drdak and Renate Allen; John Kelsey introduced his guest, his wife, Pam Kelsey. In attendance at the meeting were 90 people.
Andrea Baldeck first took up a camera at the age of eight, at the behest of her father, who asked that she photograph the flowers in his garden rather than pick them. This interest stayed with her during undergraduate studies at Vassar, medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, and a medical practice as an anesthesiologist. She left the operating room for good in the early 1990s to become a full time fine-art photographer working exclusively in black and white film. Her work since then has been collected in several books, numerous exhibits, and museum and private collections.
What intrigues Andrea and motivates her to go to the often-remote locations to take her photographs is “a fascination with light and shadow, the way the two conceal, reveal, and transmute the visual world.” The eye is drawn to forms, contours, and textures. Three dimensions are compressed into two. Everything is abstracted through the palette of black and white. Andrea believes that photos entice your gaze, pique your imagination, and conjure your wonder.
Andrea said many people are surprised that she photographs in black and white, using an analogue camera, and film. Some are surprised film still exists. Others want to know what she shoots: portraits? landscapes? still lifes? Her response is yes, yes, and yes.
Andrea first went to Haiti on a medical trip. She was struck by the stunning landscapes, the unrelenting poverty, and the dignity in the faces of the Haitian people. She noted that some of their pithy proverbs became captions to some of the photos in her book The Heart of Haiti. “Your face is your passport” was attached to a photo of an older couple. “The tiger may be old but his claws are never old” became the caption to a photo of a wizened older man standing over a sleeping child.
Venice, a Personal View is the name of the book that resulted from many trips to Venice over a period of five years in various seasons, which allowed Andrea to capture the variation in light in different weather. Whether it was the light of the moon or images of buildings, everything reflected on the water that is so prevalent there. As you would think, most of the images from Venice that Andrea showed were landscapes or still lifes.
Presence Passing is the name of her book of photos taken on a “slow meander through small town America.” Some photos were nostalgic, e.g., the hardware store with the old gas pump in front; some were funny, e.g., the sign next to the closed door of a ramshackle building: “Beware Bad Dog in Store When Closed.” With this book of photos, Andrea said she was “stalking time,” which “though impalpable, leaves a wake that can be touched.”
Still Life is a book of photos of playful constructions of white crockery stacked haphazardly against a black background. The constructions are amusing but are also studies in form, light, and shadows.
When showing the photos from her book India Portraits, Andrea spoke about her portrait process. She said portraits are challenging to her but also most rewarding. She uses a 60mm lens, not a telephoto lens, so she is forced to engage with her subject. Collaboration and cooperation are the keys to making the process successful and rewarding because humans tend to be most captivated by our own species, specifically “face, form, and figure.” “We recognize the likenesses that bind us together and the differences that set us apart.” Andrea also made a point of saying that she always asked permission of her subject before taking her/his portrait, and that sometimes she was refused.
Andrea said that “classically, it is the human gaze that defines a portrait.” When she makes a portrait, Andrea said, she hears the imperative of E.M. Forster: “only connect.”
A mere glance at Andrea’s India Portraits underscores what he means.
The questions at the end of the meeting revealed an interest amongst the audience in the nuts and bolts of Andrea’s craft. She uses a 6.2 Leica camera when traveling; she also has a Hasselblad square format camera. She takes fewer shots shooting in analogue than if she were shooting in digital. There is much less manipulation of analogue photos than of digital, as one cannot add anything to a film negative; about the only thing one can do is change the filter through which the light falls onto the negative.
Andrea admitted she had tried digital and color photography but prefers the challenge of making good photographs without color. She asks herself where is the emotion? The tension? The expression? The analogue process slows you down to devote more time to composition and to translating colors into black and white values on the gray scale.
Respectfully submitted,
Sarah Ringer
Andrea Baldeck first took up a camera at the age of eight, at the behest of her father, who asked that she photograph the flowers in his garden rather than pick them. This interest stayed with her during undergraduate studies at Vassar, medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, and a medical practice as an anesthesiologist. She left the operating room for good in the early 1990s to become a full time fine-art photographer working exclusively in black and white film. Her work since then has been collected in several books, numerous exhibits, and museum and private collections.
What intrigues Andrea and motivates her to go to the often-remote locations to take her photographs is “a fascination with light and shadow, the way the two conceal, reveal, and transmute the visual world.” The eye is drawn to forms, contours, and textures. Three dimensions are compressed into two. Everything is abstracted through the palette of black and white. Andrea believes that photos entice your gaze, pique your imagination, and conjure your wonder.
Andrea said many people are surprised that she photographs in black and white, using an analogue camera, and film. Some are surprised film still exists. Others want to know what she shoots: portraits? landscapes? still lifes? Her response is yes, yes, and yes.
Andrea first went to Haiti on a medical trip. She was struck by the stunning landscapes, the unrelenting poverty, and the dignity in the faces of the Haitian people. She noted that some of their pithy proverbs became captions to some of the photos in her book The Heart of Haiti. “Your face is your passport” was attached to a photo of an older couple. “The tiger may be old but his claws are never old” became the caption to a photo of a wizened older man standing over a sleeping child.
Venice, a Personal View is the name of the book that resulted from many trips to Venice over a period of five years in various seasons, which allowed Andrea to capture the variation in light in different weather. Whether it was the light of the moon or images of buildings, everything reflected on the water that is so prevalent there. As you would think, most of the images from Venice that Andrea showed were landscapes or still lifes.
Presence Passing is the name of her book of photos taken on a “slow meander through small town America.” Some photos were nostalgic, e.g., the hardware store with the old gas pump in front; some were funny, e.g., the sign next to the closed door of a ramshackle building: “Beware Bad Dog in Store When Closed.” With this book of photos, Andrea said she was “stalking time,” which “though impalpable, leaves a wake that can be touched.”
Still Life is a book of photos of playful constructions of white crockery stacked haphazardly against a black background. The constructions are amusing but are also studies in form, light, and shadows.
When showing the photos from her book India Portraits, Andrea spoke about her portrait process. She said portraits are challenging to her but also most rewarding. She uses a 60mm lens, not a telephoto lens, so she is forced to engage with her subject. Collaboration and cooperation are the keys to making the process successful and rewarding because humans tend to be most captivated by our own species, specifically “face, form, and figure.” “We recognize the likenesses that bind us together and the differences that set us apart.” Andrea also made a point of saying that she always asked permission of her subject before taking her/his portrait, and that sometimes she was refused.
Andrea said that “classically, it is the human gaze that defines a portrait.” When she makes a portrait, Andrea said, she hears the imperative of E.M. Forster: “only connect.”
A mere glance at Andrea’s India Portraits underscores what he means.
The questions at the end of the meeting revealed an interest amongst the audience in the nuts and bolts of Andrea’s craft. She uses a 6.2 Leica camera when traveling; she also has a Hasselblad square format camera. She takes fewer shots shooting in analogue than if she were shooting in digital. There is much less manipulation of analogue photos than of digital, as one cannot add anything to a film negative; about the only thing one can do is change the filter through which the light falls onto the negative.
Andrea admitted she had tried digital and color photography but prefers the challenge of making good photographs without color. She asks herself where is the emotion? The tension? The expression? The analogue process slows you down to devote more time to composition and to translating colors into black and white values on the gray scale.
Respectfully submitted,
Sarah Ringer