|
Craig
Blacklock, 1954-
Often working with his father, or former
spouse, Nadine, Craig has photographed many books
on this area, including: Minnesota Wild; Our Minnesota; Border Country;
Gooseberry; The Duluth Portfolio;  The
Geese of Silver Lake; and his largest project to date, The Lake Superior
Images. Several of these books have won awards, including: Minnesota
Book Award; Midwest Independent Publishers Book Achievement Award; Lake
Superior Magazine Achievement Award; Northeast Minnesota Book Award: and
most recently the National Publishers Freedom Award for the best book in
the Arts and Nature category, given to Border Country.
Like his father and Nadine did, Craig works primarily with a 4x5 inch
view camera. This format allows for large reproduction of the images
with very little loss of detail. In 1998 Craig began digitally mastering
their fine art prints. This process allows fine control of color balance
and saturation, contrast and density. In mastering a print, it is
Craig’s intention to recreate his original perception of a composition.
An ardent conservationist, Craig hopes his images will inspire people
to protect the finest landscapes of the region (particularly the North
Shore of Lake Superior) from further residential development. He
co-founded Blacklock
Nature Sanctuary, and is currently the president of the non-profit,
arts/environmental organization. He was also instrumental in
establishing the Lake
Superior Water Trail of Minnesota.
In 1996, Craig shifted in his work and began the photography for a
book of black and white nudes on Lake Superior. He planned to work with
many models, but quickly asked his second model to be the only one for
the project. Honey agreed to continue working with him and wanted to
write an essay to accompany Craig’s imagery in A Voice Within. They were
married in 1999 and had a daughter in 2001. A Voice Within — The Lake
Superior Nudes was published in 2004.
While Honey was pregnant and Charis an infant, the Blacklocks
couldn’t kayak to remote areas together to continue their collaborative
black and white work. Craig took time to photograph a new series,
Horizons, for which he pared down his subject matter to colorful
expanses of sky and water on Lake Superior. A book was published in 2002
in conjunction with exhibitions of fine art prints at the Waters of
Superior galleries.
Craig's photos are available as murals:
|
