- Camera
- Fuji GX617, Hasselblad XPan II
- Film
- Ilford HP5 Plus, Delta 100, Tri-X
- Paper
- Ilford Multigrade FB, air dried
- Editions
- Numbered, 25 or fewer, never reprinted
Recent rolls
Out of the sleeve
Six frames from the last two seasons, straight from the negative file. Each one comes up as you reach it. Click a frame to see it whole.
Editions
On the line
The prints I am making this season, still on the wire. Every one is a silver gelatin print on fiber paper, numbered in pencil on the back.
The printer
Made under a red light
One photographer, one enlarger, and every print made by the same pair of hands.
I expose one frame where most people take twenty, and I spend the rest of the day making it a print.
I have photographed the northern Rockies and the Pacific coast on 6x17 film since 2009. The camera weighs more than the tent, the light I want lasts about eleven minutes, and a good year gives me twelve or fourteen negatives worth printing. That slowness is the whole point: a panoramic frame has to be composed edge to edge before the shutter opens, because there is no cropping your way out of it afterward.
Every print is made in my own darkroom on North Rouse Avenue on fiber paper, dodged and burned by hand, fixed twice, washed for an hour and left to dry flat overnight. Editions are twenty-five or fewer, numbered in pencil on the back, and no image is ever reprinted once its run is sold. I log every exposure and every developing time in a pocket notebook, and I drink my coffee while the fixer works.
- Cameras
- Fuji GX617 with the 90, 105 and 180 mm, Hasselblad XPan II
- Film
- Ilford HP5 Plus and Delta 100, Kodak Tri-X for the nights
- Paper
- Ilford Multigrade FB Classic, matte, air dried flat
- Developer
- Kodak HC-110 for film, Dektol 1+2 for paper
- Since
- 2009, the first roll through a borrowed Widelux
Rowan Adler, Bozeman, Montana
By the numbers
A test strip of fifteen years
Counted the way exposures are counted: a stop at a time, and never rounded up.
Test strip · Ilford Multigrade FB · grade 3 f/8 · 50 mm · 2 s base
Four ways in
What comes off the shelf
Prints, commissions, licensing and a weekend in the darkroom. Every box has a number on it.
Limited-edition prints
Silver gelatin prints on fiber paper, made by hand from the original negative, numbered and signed on the back. Twenty-five or fewer per image, never reprinted.
Commissioned panoramas
A place photographed for one wall: a lodge lobby, a boardroom, a house that looks at the same ridge every morning. One trip, one roll, one print made for the room.
Editorial and brand licensing
Existing frames licensed for magazines, books, campaigns and hotel interiors. Rights-managed, one use at a time, high-resolution scans made from the negative.
Darkroom weekends
Two days in the darkroom with your own negatives, four people at a time. Exposure, test strips, dodging and burning, and a fiber print you carry home dry.
How a print happens
From the brief to the wall
Six timers, set in order. Most of the time is waiting for light, or for paper to dry.
The brief
Which wall, how wide, which season. Twenty minutes on the phone settles most of it.
Scouting
I walk the ground before I carry the camera up it, and I read the weather for a week.
The exposure
Panoramic light lasts about eleven minutes. One or two frames, rarely more.
Developing
The film is developed the same evening, sleeved, and contact-printed by morning.
Proofing
Work prints, test strips and a proof mailed to you before the final is made.
Print and ship
The final print, washed, dried flat, spotted, signed and crated for the wall.
Add a week in winter, when the paper dries slowly and the passes close.
Price list
Editions by size
Every print is a silver gelatin print on fiber paper, made by hand from the negative. Prices are for the print alone; framing is quoted with it.
Image 7 x 21 in on 11 x 27 in paper
The size most walls want
Printed in two sessions, mounted flat
Made to order, six to eight weeks
Released only once the edition is sold
- Framing
- Museum glass in black ash or white oak, quoted with the print
- Shipping
- Flat in a crate, insured, US and Canada included; elsewhere at cost
- Certificate
- Signed and numbered on the back, with a certificate and the negative's frame number
- Sold out
- A sold-out image is never reprinted at any size
All prices in US dollars. A print is made when it is ordered, so allow the lead time before a hanging date.
The notebook
Developing notes
The combinations I keep coming back to, with the times I actually use. Steal them.
The everyday roll. Holds cloud detail without blocking the shadows on the ridges.
For dune ripples and grass, where the grain has to disappear at 30 x 90.
Night skies and moonlit flats, pushed two stops. Contrast comes up, so print at grade 2.
Fog and sea stacks. Rodinal keeps the edge on the rocks that DD-X softens.
Times are for a small tank at 68°F with a water stop, two fixes and an hour's wash. Yours will differ; make a test roll first.
On the wall
What the rooms said back
From the people who hung the prints, and the ones who learned to make them.
We hung the Gallatin print in the lobby on a Tuesday and by Friday three guests had asked where the mountain was. It is the first thing in the building that looks like the place the building is in.
I have bought a lot of photographs for a lot of offices. This is the only one where the artist mailed me a proof, called about the light in the room, and then changed the paper because of it.
The negative had a dust spot the size of a pinhead and he reprinted the whole thing rather than spot it. I did not ask. I would not have noticed.
Two days in his darkroom taught me more about printing than four years of doing it alone. I left with a print I still cannot believe I made.
The record
Shown, printed, written up
Exhibitions, prizes and pages, in the order they happened.
2026
- Eleven Minutes: panoramas of the northern Rockies
- The printer who still counts in stops
2025
- Landscape print of the year
- Two Coasts, one darkroom
- Composing edge to edge: the 6x17 frame
2024
- The forty-minute exposure
2023
- Juror's choice, black and white
2022
- Noon Shadow
Before you order
Asked at the darkroom door
Delivery, editions and what happens if the crate arrives dented. The terms first, then the questions.
Delivery
Prints ship flat in a wooden crate, insured, within fourteen days. Sizes over sixty inches take six to eight weeks because they are printed to order.
If it is wrong
If a print arrives damaged or is not the one you ordered, photograph the crate and write to me the same week. I reprint it and pay the shipping both ways.
What you own
A numbered print from a closed edition, signed on the back, with a certificate. The negative and the reproduction rights stay with me.
Are the prints really made by hand?
Yes, every one. There is no inkjet anywhere in the process: the negative goes into the enlarger, the paper goes into the developer, and the print you receive was made by me, in the dark, on the day it was ordered. It is why a print takes two weeks rather than two days.
What does 'edition of 25' mean in practice?
Twenty-five prints of that image will ever exist at that size, plus two artist proofs that are released only after the twenty-five have sold. The number of yours is written in pencil on the back, and once the edition closes I retire the negative from that size for good.
Can I see a print before I buy one?
You can visit the darkroom on Tuesdays through Fridays by arrangement, and on the second Saturday of every month without one. For a large commission I mail a work print of the image at eight by twenty-four inches so you can hold it in the room it is going to hang in.
Do you frame?
Yes, through a framer in town who has mounted every large print I have sold. Black ash or white oak, museum glass, a hinge mount so the paper can breathe. Framing is quoted with the print and adds about ten days.
Will you license a photograph for a book or a campaign?
Existing frames are licensed rights-managed, one use at a time, from a high-resolution drum scan of the negative. Editorial use starts at three hundred and fifty dollars; brand and interior use is quoted on the job. I do not sell stock and I do not license exclusively.
Do you photograph places on commission?
A few times a year. It needs one trip, one roll and a wall I have seen a photograph of. Lodges, boardrooms and houses that look at the same ridge every morning are the usual jobs. Send the wall and the view and I will tell you honestly whether the light there is any good.
Prints and commissions
Write to the darkroom
Which print, which size, which wall. I answer between the developer and the fix, usually the same day.
Received. I will write back once the print in the tray is fixed.