Prompt response from Kaylynn Deveny

At the start of this blog I posted a eulogy in praise of the work of KayLynn Deveny whose work I really admire. I decided to e-mail her and ask a few questions regarding her MO and how she presents her work. She was kind enough to reply straight back:


 How do you go about your work from a technical point of view – camera, lenses, printing processes?
I photographed Bert with one medium format camera and a single standard lens. I first used an old Bronica. When I dropped that and crunched it, I got a Hasselblad. I used only available light, no strobe. I usually shot Fuji 400 or 800 ASA color neg film. I scanned the negatives on an Imacon. My prints are pigmented ink jet prints made on an Epson 11880 using Ilford Gold Fiber Silk paper.

2. How important to you is the technical aspect of photography (vis a vis the creative result – or are the two hand in hand?)

Well, you can make a great a photograph but if you expose it poorly or print it poorly, that's all anyone will see. I think mastery of technical aspects of photography is mandatory. 3.
How do you like to display work for exhibition (this is topical for us at the moment, we are about to put on our end of year show!) One of the pictures on your website seems to show unframed photographs, annotated below – how is this effect achieved, what are the photos mounted onto?
I usually show the prints in two sizes. There are 10 -15 prints that are 17" x 17". These prints are accompanied by 5" x 2.75" handwritten captions by Bert. These larger prints are typically presented in a linear fashion.
There are also smaller pieces that incorporate both my photograph and Bert's annotation into one piece - as they are in the book. Those pieces measure 6" x 8.75". There are usually about 40 of the small pieces and they are arranged in large clusters of images rather than in a straight line.
Both the large and small prints are mounted onto aluminum with a Gator board backing that makes them appear as if there are floating about an inch away from the wall. The prints are put onto the aluminum with pressure sensitive adhesive and then they are laminated. This has proven to be a good presentation for traveling the prints and it works well within the cluster configurations.
Among those clusters - sprinkled in like memories - are a few of Bert's poems, drawings, lists and old family photographs. Those pieces are reproduced as facsimiles of the originals and each one sits on a tiny white shelf that is made to fit the piece. I have a show at Blue Sky Gallery opening on June 5th. Sometime shortly after I will have updated installation shots on my website. Seeing a photo of the clusters might be helpful to you.

Hope that helps. All the best,

KayLynn