Pillsbury ‘A’ Mill

Reeds, Springbrook, Minnesota

Beavers Lodge

by Keith Taylor

Keith Taylor is a master of traditional photographic processes. These photographs are printed in platinum-palladium, a practice that dates back to the 1860s. Each print is hand-made by brushing the paper with an even coating of light-sensitive chemicals containing platinum and palladium metals and then exposing the negative to ultraviolet light. Due to the chemical properties of platinum and palladium, these prints do not weather and change as quickly as other kinds of photographs.

In these pictures, Taylor focuses on the subtle light around natural bodies of water and the way the water’s surface creates a smooth and reflective break in the texture of the landscape. During the printing process, he emphasized the rich shadows, giving the pictures a mysterious, even haunting quality.