#PhotographerSupportPledge - Print Sales
Like the Minnesota State Fair, all good things must come to an end. This print opportunity, included.
However, if you would like to be the first notified for another opportunity (different series of work), complete the form and you’ll be among the first to know!
Print fulfillment is currently underway for those who have ordered. A tracking number will be sent once your print(s) have shipped.
These 8 x 10 inch salt print and folios were offered for 10 days between April 20 through April 30, 2020 and was the first time salt prints from my series The Best of the Best were offered as stand alone prints. Sized 8 x 10 inches, varnished with white beeswax and lavender oil they are lovely to hold. These were printed by me (most of them in 2019). The back of each print details the title, series, year, and my signature. I also include a certificate of authenticity, all packaged in a handmade folio for secure shipping.
About the Series
The Best of the Best records champion animals at the 2018 Minnesota State Fair, one of the most competitive animal contests in the world. Animal breeding, like photography, is an arena of technical and material evolution. This series explores the relationship between the present and the past, drawing parallels between early animal contests at agricultural fairs and the first major exhibition of photography at the 1851 World’s Fair in London.
In this project, I document an event in which 12 pairs of animal species are judged supreme champion— the best of the best. Using a digital camera, I photographed winning exemplars of domesticated animals then combined 19th-century salt printing techniques and contemporary inkjet technology into images that emphasize changes in breeds over time and advances in photographic technology. It is science and art; it renders both an objective typology of animal husbandry and commentary on animal contests at this time and place. The hand-crafted portraits reference similarities between the history and development of photography and the advent of animal contests.
As with life, animal breeding, and photography, the contributions of chance remind us that we are not in control. Two champions do not guarantee champion offspring. The unforeseen result of science and chance can be the embodiment of beauty or success. When several animals meet and exceed the standards that judges rely on to guide their decisions, the winner becomes a subjective choice.
Unique variations will apply, as each print is a one-of-a-kind. These 8 x 10 inch prints will fit in a standard frame, making it easy to display.
Salt prints, a photographic process popular between 1839-1860, connect to photography’s historical roots; printing on them digitally connects to the present. Combining these two printing processes softens photography’s particularized quality. The subtle tones of salt printing express mood and emotion, a contrast to the sharpness of a digital print. Subject, process, emotion, science, and chance combine to make both an immediate document and a comment on photography’s past, present, and future.
Consider pairings of work to make a menagerie of your own!
About Photographer Support Pledge
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the livelihood photographers, teachers, freelancers, galleries and professionals around the world. The #photographersupportpledge is an initiative to support photographers during the pandemic and encourage patronage of fine art photography through print sales. The Photographer Support Pledge (#photographersupportpledge) is open to photographers worldwide and follows a basic model: Participating photographers offer prints for sale at a maximum of $200 plus shipping. Anybody can purchase my prints offered for sale, and each sale helps expand my audience and offer much needed financial support.
Thank you to the #artistsupportpledge and @matthewburrowsstudio for leading the charge with this inspiring idea!
Click HERE to learn more about the series >>
Click HERE to learn more about the artist >>
Note: these were taken with my phone and haven’t been color corrected to light color casts.
About the project | Essay Excerpt by Anjuli J. Lebowitz:
Do animals have a claim on history? Is culture expressed in the shape of a beak, girth of an udder or the slope of a snout? With their abbreviated lifespans, do they carry cultural memory in their feathers, fur, and hides? These are the questions R. J. Kern poses in The Best of the Best. With twelve pairs of animals—one female, one male—Kern intertwines the history of animal competitions with the history of photography to explore some of humanity’s most urgent questions about its relationship to its fellow earthly creatures and their interwoven fates. Kern’s intricate prints, which layer salt prints over digital prints, foreground historical inquiry, human intervention, and nature’s persistence.
(...)
Kern weaves these together through the warp and weft of sepia and scarlet, matte and glossy, salt and blood paying tribute to the histories of photography and animal competitions while laying a path for the evolution of the one and the preservation of the other.
– Excerpt from the essay, Salt of the Earth: R. J. Kern’s The Best of the Best, by Anjuli J. Lebowitz, Department of Photographs, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC