- Michael A. Smith
- Santa Rosalia, Baja California, 2003
- Silver chloride contact print
Using three different large format view cameras, (8x10, 8x20
and 18x22-inch), Smith and Chamlee photograph exclusively
with Kodak Super XX film processed by visual inspection
using ABC Pyro film developer and, for a long time, only
contact print all their work on Azo silver chloride contact
paper developed in Amidal. When Super XX went out of production in 1994 they bought all of Kodak’s remaining
supply. In 2005, Kodak discontinued production of Azo paper. Consequently Smith and Chamlee are producing and using Lodima silver chloride photographic paper.
Michael A. Smith has been working in photography since
1966. Less than a year later, in 1967, he began photographing exclusively with an 8x10-inch view camera, committing him-
self to the contact print. His photographic journeys have
taken him to every state in the continental United States, western Canada, and Europe. The results of these odysseys
are included in the permanent collections of over 100
museums in the United States, Europe, and Asia, including
the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern
Art in New York, Art Institute of Chicago, Bibliothèque
Nationale, Paris, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and
the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.