Pradyumna standing beneath a marble bridge arch in Venice.

I always saw a picture: from my parents' Yashica when I was a kid, to digital cameras, to phone cameras.

Digital let me take a moment forty times and pick the seemingly best, filtered one afterwards. What I ended up with was a version not entirely true to what actually happened.

Film gives me one frame and asks me to be certain before I spend it. All my thinking moved in front of the shutter instead of behind it, and I think it is closer to what a photograph is. Not a moment manufactured out of many, but a single figment of a temporal journey: the instant one particular set of photons met a plane in space and never arranged itself that way again.

I picked up film in New York City, a city that has kept its charm without softening it for anybody, and it is still unapologetically itself, and people from all over the world go to experience it. I wanted to photograph it the way that city behaves. Film was the only medium honest enough to try.

After seeing the world in different colours, I have arrived at a place in my photographic journey where I want to see it in the true language of the universe: light and dark. White is every wavelength at once. Black is where none of them reached. When I take the colour out of a city, only that argument survives: where the light got in, and where the stone held it off.

Venezia is the first chapter in this endeavour. London is the second, in the works.

Monochrome Cities

Chapter IVenezia

Nine master frames, five with a companion study drawn from inside the same negative. Shot on DP66 Guido, a Kodak Eastman Double-X 5222 respooled in Italy. Editioned at five, with two artist's proofs retained.

The carved black prow of a gondola cutting a pale, mottled expanse of water. — Prow Master frame. Edition of 5, plus 2 artist's proofs.

A narrow Venetian canal in deep shadow, arched windows along the left wall, reflections held in still black water. — Still Canal Master frame. Edition of 5, plus 2 artist's proofs.

A closer view of the same canal, the windows and their reflections doubled in the water. — Reflected Windows Companion study to *Still Canal*. Edition of 5, plus 2 artist's proofs.

A tall pale facade of shuttered windows, crossed by hard diagonal shadows and lines of drying laundry. — Six Windows, Morning Master frame. Edition of 5, plus 2 artist's proofs.

White sheets on a washing line, reduced to flat geometric shapes against a sunlit wall. — Linen Companion study to *Six Windows, Morning*. Edition of 5, plus 2 artist's proofs.

Two weathered wooden shutters set into a wall of crumbling plaster and exposed brick. — Shutters Master frame. Edition of 5, plus 2 artist's proofs.

A dark archway opening onto bright daylight, a woman with a shopping trolley walking out into the glare. — Passage Master frame. Edition of 5, plus 2 artist's proofs.

The same figure enlarged until she breaks into grain, reading as a drawn mark rather than a photograph. — Figure, Dissolving Grain study from *Passage*. Printed from a deliberate enlargement of the negative; the figure resolves as texture, not detail. Edition of 5, plus 2 artist's proofs.

Two figures silhouetted at the far end of a narrow alley, a hard wedge of sunlight cutting the paving. — Two Walking Master frame. Edition of 5, plus 2 artist's proofs.

Two moored gondolas seen bow-on beside a church facade, their forms doubled in the water. — Two Gondolas Master frame. Edition of 5, plus 2 artist's proofs.

The rooftops and chimneys behind the gondolas, rendered soft and high-key in shallow focus. — Rooftops Companion study to *Two Gondolas*, from the soft ground of the same negative. Edition of 5, plus 2 artist's proofs.

A long canal receding to a footbridge, a gondolier working the oar in the left foreground. — The Oar Master frame. Edition of 5, plus 2 artist's proofs.

The oar entering the water, drawing a turning vortex of ripples across a pale surface. — Wake Companion study to *The Oar*. Edition of 5, plus 2 artist's proofs.

The ribbed underside of the Costituzione bridge sweeping across a white sky above the Grand Canal. — Under the Bridge Master frame. Edition of 5, plus 2 artist's proofs.

Editions and printing

Every frame in this chapter is printed in London as an archival pigment giclée on 300gsm matte cotton rag. Prints are made from the original negative and supervised proof by proof.

Edition: Five prints per frame, numbered and signed. Two artist's proofs are retained and are not offered for sale. The edition closes at seven impressions and will not be extended.
Sizes: Companion studies at A4. Master frames at A2. Oversized commissions to A0, made to order.
Price: On request, at every size.
Certificate: Each print ships with a signed certificate recording the title, the edition number as printed, the year of the negative, the year of the print, and the paper. A register of every numbered impression is kept.
Framing: Prints ship unframed and unmounted by default. Framing can be arranged in London on request.
Negatives: All negatives are archived. The master exists, which is what makes an edition of five an edition of five.

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