  I am pleased to offer an intimate size print of my image, Forest in Mist, Xi'an, China, at the greatly reduced price of $325. This silver gelatin, selenium toned, print is approximately 6-1/2 x 6-1/2" in size. It is personally printed by me (as are all my prints), processed to current archival standards, signed, and mounted on 14x17" 2-ply museum board with a discrete embossed stamp denoting this is a silver gelatin print by John Sexton in the lower right corner. Please note that this print is dry-mounted, but NOT overmatted. The image Forest in Mist, Xi'an, China was made during the second of three workshops I led in China during the 1980s. These workshops were part of a cultural exchange program between the Friends of Photography and the China Photographers Association. I led these cultural exchange workshops in 1983, 1984, and 1986. This was an amazing time to visit China. In those days Anglo-Americans were a curiosity to many Chinese people, and attracted a great deal of attention. You can possibly imagine how our group of photographers, which included view cameras as large as 8x10" in size, stood out as we walked the streets. I remember one time when we literally stopped traffic for two city blocks, as people mobbed the area to see this small group of strange looking photographers making images. We visited the city of Xi'an on the first workshop in 1983. The primary reason was to visit the famed ancient Terracotta Army archeological site - which had been discovered by local farmers a few years prior in 1974. While it was truly amazing to see the massive columns of "marching" life-size soldiers, and their horses, it was also very frustrating - as photography was not allowed. Once plans had been made to conduct another similar workshop in November 1984, I began to communicate with officials in China asking for special permission for our cultural exchange group to photograph the figures. A final decision was to be made once we had in person meetings in China. The meetings went well (during which we drank a massive amount of tea!), but the final decision was a distressing, NO! We once again visited, but could not photograph, the Terracotta Army. However, on both trips we found the city of Xi'an, and the people, to be wonderful. We visited a few professional photography studios. On the first workshop I gave employees of each studio pins of the American flag and Mickey Mouse. On this trip we made an unannounced return visit to one of the studios. As soon as we encountered the employees their faces lit up in recognition. One young woman ran out of the room, and returned moments later holding her Mickey Mouse pin. We made portraits of the Chinese photographers, and they made portraits of us. The memory of that visit, 36 years ago this month, is still vividly etched in my mind. One morning when we awoke Xi'an was blanketed in a heavy fog. A number of the workshop participants and I decided to go out wandering from our hotel to see what we might find. It was a chilly, and I suppose to some, a rather 'gloomy' day. As photographers, we thought it was wonderful light. Not far from the hotel we discovered a park filled with rows of planted trees, and began to explore. I was interested in how the bare trunks seemed to recede into space. The one sender trunk, angled to the left, crossing the row made me decide this was the spot to make the photograph. This image was made with my Rolleiflex SL-66E camera and a 50mm wide-angle lens. The exposure, made on Agfapan 100 film, was 10 seconds at f/32. The negative was given normal development. I was very excited when I unwound the wet roll of film of the reel and saw the well-exposed frames. I printed the negative not long after that. The image appears as Plate 3 in my book, Listen to the Trees. The prints will be carefully prepared and packaged in rugged protective envelopes, and shipped fully insured. Normally there is a long waiting period for John's original prints. This is a rare opportunity to obtain a print with quick delivery , and at a very reasonable price. |