Primal images

by Jerry Burchfield

"Struck by the exotic and impenetrable mystery of the world's largest rain forest on his first visit to the Amazon, photographer Jerry Burchfield sought to create an art that would celebrate the beauty and spirit of the place, while reminding people of the forest's endangered and perishable nature. Primal Images is Burchfield's answer, his lumen prints created without a camera or lens." "Burchfield's photographic process relies on methods that date back to the origins of photography, beginning with the shadow-grams of nineteenth-century pioneers William Henry Fox Talbot and Anna Atkins and, more recently, twentieth-century innovators such as Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Robert Heinecken and Joyce Neimanas." "To create his lumens, Burchfield places a plant cutting directly on black-and-white photographic paper that he secures to the deck of his boat while out in the Amazon. He then lets the serendipitous interaction of sunlight, rain, temperature, and each plant's inherent moisture and chemistry