My work is composed, primarily, of various traditional photographic formats. Some are digital capture, but most are either from 35mm, medium, or large format film. I exclusively handle all digital images and black and white film throughout the process. E6 (color slide film - velvia) is processed at a premier photo lab. In order to digitize film either a Nikon 8000LS film scanner or Epson 4870 flat bed scanner are utilized. Photoshop is the primary darkroom of choice these days. Some of the images I have previously accomplished in a traditional wet darkroom, however, the amount of control and convenience that can be provided by a digital darkroom makes a broader breadth of images possible if time constraints alone are considered. Thus, over the last year I have moved more and more into producing works from the digital desktop and have been quite satisfied with the quality. The advancements in archival inkjet (giclee) printing in recent years make digital work on par with traditional techniques.

The field equipment I now use includes a Nikon D2X digital camera and two lenses, a Nikon 17-35 zoom and 80-400 VR lens. I also utilize a Hasselblad system on occasion and have recently begun trying out a Tachihara 4x5 field camera with a 90mm, 150mm, and 240mm lens.

I became interested in photography in my youth but put the camera away for the better part of the last two decades with the exception of taking occasional snapshots of my two beautiful daughters. A few years ago, my wife encouraged me to begin anew and so I reconstructed my darkroom from scratch. I consider myself a traditionalist so it came as quite a surprise when I recently accepted the digital environment. Though I find myself yearning on occasion to pull out the old chemicals and make some new 4x5 contact prints, digital is here to stay. And, it is beautiful. I have my wife to thank for everything. Absolutely everything.

Christopher A. Rok