Refuge

Dye Transfer photographs are handcrafted color photographic prints.

The dye transfer process, created in the 1940's by Kodak, gives incredible depth of color, maximum control of color balance and contrast and, ultimate archival life.

In the summer of 1993, Kodak—the only manufacturer of dye transfer chemicals, dyes and film—discontinued production of all dye transfer materials. The photography world was stunned. Today, dye transfer prints are extraordinarily rare.

Simply put, a dye transfer print is made by taking a color original—usually a slide— and breaking it into three separate negatives. These negatives are then exposed onto gelatin coated mats called matrixes. The unexposed gelatin is washed off and the mats are soaked in primary colored dyes of cyan, magenta and yellow. Then one at a time the mats are hand rolled onto a piece of mordant layered photographic paper much like a lithographer rolls out ink onto a print. The end-product is the pinnacle of color reproduction.

The way people communicate visually was forever changed with the demise of the dye transfer process; the art of the human hand being lost. Prints made mechanically with a conventional process are to dye transfer prints as a piece of music played on a player piano is to one played on a concert grand.

The dye transfer process is simply gone for all practical purposes. It will be remembered, however, for dye transfer prints will be our best color record of the second half of the twentieth century. And, considering what has passed for photographic art in our time, dye transfer prints may someday be regarded as a surprisingly large percentage of the most beautiful and enduring art from our age.

Refuge is a collection of Dye Transfer Prints. The images are dedicated to a vow taken, to take refuge in stillness. All images, Maureen Morrison. All Master print-work, Ctein.