About the artist:

Thomas L. McCartney was born in Grove City, PA in 1938. He began his career in Veterinary Medicine and later became interested in photography. Originally involved in wildlife photography, he worked with color materials and utilized a color printing process known as “dye transfer”. His love of this avocation influenced him to give up medicine and directed him to study with such contemporary masters as George Tice and Kipton Kumler. He also had the very good fortune to meet and study with Ansel Adams and Minor White. Photographer’s Statement: Photography, for me, is not only a means of self expression but also a method of communication. For me to attempt to write or to describe verbally the magnificence offered by a majestic mountain landscape or the quiet gentleness of an early morning fog over the marsh is impossible. Thus, I depend on the camera to convey my message ... Black and white photography takes on a magical quality by giving a mystical sense of aesthetics to reality. McCartney works with a printing process that goes back to the 19th Century – the Platinotype. This type of hand – sensitized platinum print offers an intimacy between the photographer and his or her negative that the modern mass - produced emulsions cannot come close to. The platinum image is the most stable of all the photographic processes lasting for hundreds of years. It also has richness and is dominated by soft middle tones. This type of printing is for the artist disciplined by aesthetics and who is satisfied with being rewarded by only one or two eloquent prints from a days work.