What Remains Between Us

Pictorial Whispers is a deeply personal series of handmade salt prints from calotype paper negatives, created as a way to process the grief of losing my daughter, Abby. Each image explores the quiet emotional terrain of resilience, transformation, and connection through the delicate life cycle of flowers.

Using 19th-century chemistry and vintage soft-focus lenses, I craft every salt print and calotype paper negative by hand—one sheet at a time. The result is a body of work that embraces imperfection, stillness, and emotional presence. These are not documents. They are quiet visual poems—fragile, reflective, and timeless.

“This work is slow because it matters. It was made for quiet looking, for memory, and for those willing to sit with what cannot be understood at a glance. I’m not here to be seen quickly. I’m here to be seen deeply.” — Tim Layton

For Collectors

Original handmade salt prints from my Pictorial Whispers series are available as limited editions. Each print is contact printed by hand in my darkroom from an original whole plate calotype paper negative on 8×10 cotton rag paper.

This is a fully analog process. The calotype paper negative is prepared by hand, exposed in a large format camera, developed in the darkroom, and contact printed as a traditional salt print on cotton rag paper. No digital capture, AI, or digital printing is used to create the finished artwork.

Each salt print is made individually, then carefully inspected, titled, signed, dated, and accompanied by a numbered certificate of authenticity. Small variations in tone, surface, and edge detail are part of the beauty of the process. They are signs of the hand, the paper, the chemistry, and the light.

These are original handmade photographs, not reproductions. They offer collectors a direct connection to one of photography’s earliest and most poetic processes, brought forward through a deeply personal contemporary body of work rooted in grief, memory, and endurance.

Artist Statement for Plate No. 3

This image felt different the moment I composed it. Three flowers, each bowed in its own quiet way, stood in relationship to one another—distinct yet deeply connected. I saw grief not as something solitary but as something shared. This print is about what lingers in the spaces between us: unspoken love, quiet support, and the invisible threads that bind us even in silence.

Creative Process Notes

Photographed with my 8×10 camera and the 19th century Dallmeyer 3B 290mm F3 soft-focus lens, this calotype was made in the late afternoon when the window light was soft but directional. The three vases were arranged instinctively, not as a formal still life, but as a visual reflection of emotional proximity. The paper was hand-coated, exposed, and developed using gallic acid and silver nitrate. The tones emerged slowly, deepening after drying.

Reflection / Journal Excerpt

I thought about the people in my life who stood near me in loss—not trying to fix it, not needing to speak. Just there. That’s what these three flowers became. A reminder that grief may isolate us, but it can also connect us in ways words never could.

Artwork & Technical Information

• Title: Pictorial Whispers Plate No. 3 – What Remains Between Us
• Process: 19th-century 8×10 salt print from original hand-coated whole plate calotype paper negative, contact printed under sunlight.
• Camera: 8×10 view camera
• Lens: 290mm F3 Dallmeyer 3B Petzval
• Development: Gallic acid and silver nitrate
• Date Created: September 29 2024
• Edition: Available as a limited edition of 100 artist originals or open archival reproductions.

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