Statement
In my landscape photographs, I seek imagery that brings out a sense of soul, an interface with an internal, emotional landscape. The act of photographing represents a form of passion. When I am photographing, I am creatively centered in the moment, in a passionate psychological space that removes me from normal limitations of thought, planning, and time. Each time I shoot a landscape image, it tacitly speaks to me with complex emotions. I photograph each landscape in the moment, without assumptions. It is only later, after the complex process of printing is completed that the emotional layers of the image reveal themselves fully.

Process
The combination of tools and materials I use plays a significant role in bringing out the feeling-level of my photographs. My early work as a landscape photographer concentrated exclusively on silver-gelatin printing, traditional black-and-white printing. I love this form of printing, and I continue using this process for much of my current work. In order to achieve a more pictorial quality in my photographs, I embarked in 1995 upon a new process utilizing an 8x10 camera, printing platinum-palladium contact prints on hand-made Japanese paper. The paper I use in this work, known as Gampi, is used by many fine-art print makers, not just by photographers. The paper is extremely delicate and has a translucent quality. When used for platinum-palladium printing, it adds a luminescence to the final print and a tactile dimension of texture. The photographs made with this process become imbued with the evocative quality of paintings and are highly expressive of the emotions of the landscape.

Bio
Alan Shulik is an award-winning photographer whose works have been exhibited in many galleries throughout the United States.