Author: tvalleau

Minutiae: it’s all in the details

  Minutiae “…the shapes nearest shapelessness awe us most, suggest the god.” (A. R. Ammons) “Beauty is the Universal seen.” (Alfred Stieglitz)* I’ve been working on this for several months now, and as far as I know, it’s an original idea: make extremely tiny works which are designed to become “art” only after they are […]

How to release the head on an Epson 7890 – 9890

The old “turn it on, and yank the power cord” is hardly the safest way to release the print head on an extremely expensive printer. Here’s the correct way to do it (no dangerous moves required) :   Start in service mode* select self-testing -> met Adjustment -> PG Adj Press OK while Un Cap is displayed. That […]

Printing a printer profile target on OS X.

Most of you know that it’s not any longer conveniently possible to print a file with absolutely NO color management tweaking the colors. Between Apple, Adobe and Epson, there just isn’t a simple and obvious way to print out a sample target for reading with your ColorMunki or i1 Photo Pro. There are three, in […]

How to prepare an image for a photo contest

Entering photography contests is fun, but the first few times it can be a bit daunting. The contest always specifies what format an image file must be, in order to be accepted. And besides that, it limits the size… and besides -that- you want them to see it with the same colors as you see […]

Photography changes: the cellphone and photography as art

There are 7.2 billion people in the world, and 7 billion cell phone accounts. Cellphones now reach over 96% of the people, and over half of them are in the Asia-Pacific region. The penetration is 90% in developing countries. 40% of the world’s population is on the internet. Every day over a billion photographs are uploaded to […]

Your rights as a photographer

A couple of days ago, I was in a face-off with the postmaster in my community. I was in the post office, taking shots that appealed to me. He stepped in front of the camera, and told me I could not photograph there. Thing ended amicably, and I continued shooting, but that did inspire this […]

I’m interviewed

Screenwriter and author Christina Hamlett interviewed me recently, asking basic questions about the world of photography. It’s here: Tracy Valleau Fine Art Photography

An earlier talk on Fine Art (2013)

(This talk was delivered a few times to fellow photographers, in late 2013. It proposes a definition for  “fine art photography” based on that which “the fine arts” as a group, have in common, and thus distinguishes between “fine art” and “high-concept art.”)   A Talk: “On Photography and Fine Art.”© 2013 Tracy Valleau Hello […]

My prints are too dark… and it’s not my monitor

95% of the time someone complains about their prints being too dark, it’s a simple solution: their monitor is too bright. That’s old news. Here, on the other hand, is something you might not have discovered before: I had my prints suddenly go too dark just last week, and found an unexpected solution. History: I’ve […]

Print fading, OBAs, Dye and Pigment, plexi and so on…

Here is the bottom line: your photographic prints ARE going to change over time. Period. You may be able to put that off for maybe 1000 years, provided you are so famous that you can get together with Corbis and Bill Gates, and get them stored in sub-zero temperatures underground in the Corbis photo vault […]