When an invitation from Anna and Thomas Roma for breakfast came we were thrilled. The ritual and pleasure of sharing a meal is often the best way to make new friends.
Thomas Roma is brilliant, funny, outspoken, and above all a passionate artist. He showed us his compact, well organized machine shop, where he makes his own cameras. We then moved on to his darkroom where Tom demonstrated many other ingenious customizations to improve the efficiency and quality of his photographic process. Like any good get together time pasted quickly and we learned a lot about Anna and Tom, and I’m sure they became more familiar with us.
The Romas work as a creative team. Their collaborative approach is inspirational as well as practical. Anna and Tom strike an envious balance. For us this was a good sign, we feel that the best way to work with an artist is in collaboration. Our breakfast with the Roma’s was, for lack of a better term, a business meeting. Digital Silver Imaging was going to create a series of images for the Roma’s show at the Steve Kasher Gallery, In the Vale of Cashmere, and this was our introduction to the project.
“We had a wonderful and productive time working with Digital Silver – the prints are stunning and the process was smooth (not to mention great food next door!). Eric is calm and charming and was willing to engage any adjustments until the prints looked exactly how we envisioned.” – Anna Roma
The silver gelatin prints we would create needed to match the look and feeling evoked by the images in the book, In the Vale of Cashmere. Translation from one medium to another always involves trade offs, but after some initial proof prints, and a little fine tuning with Christopher in the lab, the images were shipped on time.
The images, like all the work of Thomas Roma, eloquently tells an important story beautifully, and with subtle impact. It was a true pleasure to work with the Romas. The experience we had printing In the Vale of Cashmere is why we love what we do. A big “thank you,” to Anna and Tom for letting us contribute in small part to this exhibition, and thanks also to Tod Papageorge for the introduction.
To see the images and read more about Thomas Roma and In the Vale of Cashmere follow the links below.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/05/opinion/sunday/exposures-men-of-the-vale.html?_r=1
http://www.stevenkasher.com/exhibitions/thomas-roma-in-the-vale-of-cashmere
http://sicilianocameraworks.com/.