Scenes on the death of nature, scene I1986
This photograph is part of Ferran’s series, Scenes of death of nature (1986). This series was produced early in Ferran’s career and its popularity helped to establish her as one of Australia’s leading photographic artists. In this series, Ferran has employed size, scale and classical conventions, to create compositions that are reminiscent of monumental sculpture. An interest in the theatrical resonance of monuments and memorial sites has persisted throughout Ferran’s photographic practice. And she often uses this theatrical rhetoric to pay tribute to the forgotten histories of women and children.
(2014)
Gelatin silver prints are black-and-white photographic prints that have been created using papers coated with an emulsion of gelatin and light-sensitive silver salts. After the papers are briefly exposed to light (usually through a negative), a chemical developer renders the latent image as reduced silver, which is then fixed and washed. This technique was first introduced in the 1870s and is still used today. Most twentieth-century black-and-white photographs are gelatin silver prints. They are known for being highly detailed and sharply defined prints with a distinguishable smooth, even image surface.
