Carol Henry spent years perfecting this photographic monoprint technique, and the painstaking process takes infinite patience and produces only one Ilfochrome monoprint per subject. Mounting the flowers in a special transparent carrier, Henry uses an enlarger to project their images. Light passes through the bloom, and then through a lens which enlarges and focuses the image onto the positive receiver. This process requires absolute darkness, and a surgeon's attention to detail in terms of the flowers. If the stems are too thick, the light cannot pass through them and record its hues.
Henry shaves away thickness, so that light can penetrate and reflect the green of stems.
All of the photos glow. The immediacy of Henry's technique is evident in the luminous results, which almost resemble light boxes, radiating light from within. The colors are so saturated that they seem to be the retouched stuff of ad campaigns instead of the unmediated results of a process which transforms the photographic subject into its own photographic apparatus. Carol Henry has labored over this technique for years, and the results are astonishing. This wonderful photographic center hosts provocative contemporary shows downstairs, and carries an impressive array of old standards upstairs.