Tom Kalb is presenting his black & white photography silver gelatin prints at the Spring Street Gallery, with an opening reception on Saturday July 6 from five to seven PM. The exhibit is entitled “What I really meant to see”, with images from The Maze, the network of meandering woodland and shoreline trails down Corn Neck. Tom works entirely with film, not digital processing, relying on an old Pentax 6x7 medium format camera to produce 120mm negatives that he develops in his attic on Block Island, and then spent a big chunk of winter in the darkroom facilities at the International Center of Photography in New York to create the final images. By being in control of the image making process from exposure, development, print and toning treatments, Tom hopes to shepherd and nurture the mood and experience of those dawn and early evening walks through the serene landscape when the light is dappled and low. Each of the technical choices along the way to producing these images were made with the hope to preserve a tonal softness and ethereal texture to match that mood. The final product offers a dreamlike quality and may suggest a biomorphism that is not entirely unintended. The frames were stained and finished by the artist to harmonize to the gentle mid-tonal hue of the prints. A catalog accompanies the exhibit, with image duotone reproductions and interspersed essays that muse on the creative notions that propelled the work.