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SF Camerawork

June 5 - August 24, 2008

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1011 Market Street 2nd Floor San Francisco, CA 94103
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Sunburn
Opening reception: Thursday, June 5, 5-8 pm SF Camerawork presents a solo exhibition of the work of emerging, San Francisco-based photographer Chris McCaw as part of its New Works Program. In his series, Sunburn, McCaw turns the subject of his work, the sun, into an active participant in the printmaking process, creating fascinating prints that are literally burned by the path of the sun. The body of work was the result of a happy accident. Intending to create an all night exposure of the stars while camping, McCaw failed to wake up before sunrise. He discovered that while the night’s exposure had been destroyed, an interesting phenomenon had occurred on the film base, which had a hole burnt through it from the intense rays of the rising sun. The exhibition at SF Camerawork displays McCaw’s most recent images that are made by putting paper, in place of film, in his camera’s film holder. Each paper negative, due to varying sky conditions and length of exposure, is scorched by the sun to differing degrees, sometimes burning completely through the paper base. McCaw uses both an 8”x10” view camera and a home made 16”x20” camera to create the paper negatives. As a result of the intense sun exposure, the sky reacts in an effect called solarization, which turns the paper negative into a positive. When developed, the paper negatives become actual one-of-a-kind prints. This exhibition is funded by a grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.