Triple Photographs 1974-1978

In 1974 I discovered three consecutive 35mm frames of film I’d taken in separate locations that by chance made a visually cohesive image when printed as a single photograph. Inspired, I later initiated a system of spontaneously photographing with a handheld camera and not cutting the film until I studied the contact sheets looking for accidental images with interesting juxtapositions and combinations. This Triple Photographs project evolved into a Graduate school thesis then became the first photographs I exhibited nationally from 1974-77.  More importantly constructing an idiosyncratic system of photography and assembling a picture from component parts would become foundational concepts that would continuously evolve and inform much of my photographic projects for decades.

This project's primary rule was the photograph must be composed of three in-camera exposures in a row with no editing or splicing.  This necessitated making contact sheets of uncut rolls of film to discover three adjacent frames that might work as a single image. I built a simple system using a sheet of tempered glass that pressed six rolls of film onto four 11' x 14' pieces of photographic paper.   The top picture shows contact sheet system. The middle photo is one contact sheet with marked potential prints as a cutting guides.  The bottom image shows a modified negative holder for printing three 35mm film sequential exposures.

Berkeley and the Legion of Honor, Gelatin Silver photograph 4” x 18”, 1974

This was the first triple photograph where I recognized the potential of a constructed visual space that unified the three exposures.