Ed Martin: Nature Morte
Still Photography was Martin’s first love. Upon retirement in 1993 from his career as a cinematographer he set up a darkroom and studio in his Los Angeles home and began to learn the technique of Cibachrome printing from his friend Winston Boyer. One of the highlights of his Hollywood career was work on a documentary about still photography. It was produced by Louis Clyde Stoumen, a noted still photographer, on a small budget. The film recorded now-renowned photographers such as Alfred Eisenstadt, Margaret Bourke-White, Edward Weston and Weegee in their homes and work places, as well as showing many early photographs held in the Library of Congress. The film won an Academy Award nomination.

Photographing human reflections in mirrorized Mylar became his first interest in working with color still photography and is strongly reflected in his current work. The images are produced slowly, painstakingly and with love. Martin calls upon all aspects of his art education and life to create them. Images of life and death are a common theme in his sculpture, paintings and photography.

When Martin left his Hollywood career as a commercial cinematographer he set out to carve out his own niche in still photography. With guidance from his friend Winston Boyer, Martin began to find his own dialect of still photography. He borrowed from the methods of others and from his experience in cinematography, then synthesized and transcended these elements. Martin substitutes a photographic enlarger for a camera. He uses two Omega enlargers, a 4 x 5 and an 11 x 14 inch, as well as a 20 x 24 inch industrial copy camera. He has retrofitted the enlargers with a bottom lighting source so that he can both backlight and frontlight his objects.

He places objects on glass in the enlarger in the film carrier slot, then uses the enlarger lens to projects the image onto film placed on the enlarger’s easel. He uses 8 x 10 or 11 x 14 inch transparency duplicating film, which has a much lower contrast than film used in a camera. The film stock has an extraordinary range of color and value. He calculates the film to work at a speed of 4 _ stops faster than the paper. Martin instructs the lab to manipulate the development 1/3 of a stop to enhance the contrast. He uses these transparencies to make contact prints or enlargements on Ilfochrome color paper and then processes these prints himself.

Martin uses this method for pragmatic and aesthetic reasons. Pragmatically Martin can view the objects as he composes them – the enlarger projects in real time, showing a video-like image on the easel. Think camera obscura. Aesthetically he can shoot all of the objects in the same focal plane giving them identical clarity. Also he has greater focal precision – large format cameras lose this when shooting extreme close ups. He can gain greater magnification as well – 100 to 1 rather than just 10 to 1 zoom.

He is fascinated with the effect lamp oil has on plants and flowers. He places them in one of the dishes he has made from window glass and clear silicone caulking. He then uses a turkey baster to add lamp oil. As they absorb the oil some items become transparent and some change color. The process starts quickly but takes a day or two until color desaturation occurs. He photographs the process rather than just the end result. It is the process that he loves. He views it as a mysterious metamorphosis.

Biography and Exhibitions
Martin was born in Portland, Oregon. He worked in Europe during World War II as a combat photographer and then formally studied photography at the Museum Art School and at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He worked as a cinematographer from 1950 to 1993. Upon retirement he returned to still photography.

Solo shows:
2003 Baxter Chang Patri Fine Art, San Francisco, CA
1997 Margaret Evans Gallery, Carmel CA
1997 Calypso Imaging, Santa Clara CA
1997 Brownstone Productions, Santa Monica CA (permanent exhibition)
1948 Reed College, Portland OR

Collective Exhibitions:
1999 Center for Photographic Art, Carmel CA
1998 Barnsdahl Art Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1997 Seven Sanctuaries Gallerie, Sherman Oaks CA
1994 Linda Pope Gallery, Santa Cruz CA
1993 Brendon Walter Gallery, Santa Monica CA
1985 Richard Evans Gallery, Pasadena CA (sculpture)
1970 Barnsdahl Art Gallery, Los Angeles CA (sculpture)
1970 Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles CA (sculpture)
1969 Laguna Gallery, Laguna Beach CA (sculpture)
1959 Westwood Art Association, Los Angeles CA (sculpture)

Awards & Nominations:
1985 CLIO award for best cinematography, IBM commercial Hats
1983 CLIO award for best cinematography, IBM commercial Skates
1957 Participated in an Academy Award nomination for best feature length documentary, The Naked Eye
1956 Participated in an Academy Award for best short documentary, The True Story of the Civil War