Casey Moore

Printed today! Fantail NZ stamp print from the 1935 Pictorial issue. This stamp comes from my great grandfather RJG Collins’ collection which was passed down to my mum. I have a series of these on my website.

Shooting and then printing these stamps takes so much attention to detail they really pushed me forward technically. I started them around 2010 and I had never shot large format before so I went in to rent the kit and the guy there asked what I was planning. He told me it was a silly idea and I’d be better off shooting on 35mm. Doing macro of something so small on the large format 4x5” needs huge bellows extension which causes diffraction, loss of sharpness and then there is reciprocity failure making the exposures very long. On top of that the dark shadow has to be just right and because I’m printing the film rebate everything has to line up with the negative and the film holder in the camera, the whole thing is a pain.

Claire was quality control on these as I was making them and so many times I would come back from a day printing and Claire would give it to me straight. The shadow wasn’t black enough or the paper was too grey or it was slightly out of line. I was too caught up in the process to see this stuff, I thought they were great but really they weren’t. Only a few prints would make it through.. Thank you @claiream for always telling it like it is