While photographing cathedral domes in Italy in 1993, Stephenson also explored other subjects including water surfaces, winter trees and cemetery memorial portraits. This work is one of the several hundred photographs of cemetery portraits he created in and around Milan.
These photographs were originally exhibited alongside his domes under the collective title Transfigurations. By juxtaposing memorial portraits with images of cathedral ceilings, Stephenson was exploring ideas of mortality and transcendence. The memorial portraits are monuments to past lives and signify the mortality of the beings whose graves they adorn. On the other hand, the celestial images on the domes, originally exhibited above these portraits, allude to the idea of the metamorphosis of the mortal beings and the beginning of an infinite afterlife in the heavens.
(2017)
Chromogenic prints are printed on paper that has at least three emulsion layers containing invisible dyes and silver salts. Each emulsion layer is sensitive to a different primary colour of light (red, green or blue). The development process converts the hidden dyes to visible colour depending on the amount of light it was exposed to. This type of paper is commonly used to print from colour negatives or digital files to produce a full-colour image. It can also be used to print black-and-white images, giving softer grain and less contrast than gelatin silver prints. Commonly known as c-type prints, chromogenic processing was developed in the 1940s and widely used for colour printing, including for domestic snapshots. While recent years have seen this process accompanied by ink-jet and digital printing technologies, chromogenic printing still remains in use to this day.
