About Me

High Road to Taos
Photography

Fine-Art Photographs of Northern New Mexico and Beyond by Dean Carstens

All photogaphs represented on this site are toned silver-gelatin prints.

This website last modified on Thursday, August 12, 2010

For more than thirty years I have photographed the people and places of northern New Mexico and the West. This has led me to a unique style based on traditional photography using a large format (4x5) camera. I use only silver-gelatin, monochromatic (black and white) photographic methods, which gives my photographs an inherent stability and increased tonal range not found with other media.

The silver-gelatin photographs are hand printed and developed to bring out the best from my original negatives. These prints are then toned to enhance quality and prolong life. The prints are mounted on, and matted with, museum-quality, archival mat boards. Images are offered both matted or matted & framed--see the price list for current costs.

Recently I have experimented with digital techniques and an inkjet printer to produce full-size paper negatives which are then contact printed onto silver-gelatin paper. This technology marries the best of both traditional and digital techniques and is in keeping with the directions taken by many well-know contemporary photographers.

What's in a Name?

Many people have asked me how I came up with my studio name, High Road to Taos Photography. The High Road is the original mountain road (built around 1600)traveling from Santa Fe (the early Spanish capital) to Taos through many small farming towns such as Chimayo, Trampas. Truches, and Penasco. A later, shorter, road was built directly along the Rio Grande (in the 1800s) to provide for a quicker access between the two communities.

For many years I lived on a branch of the High Road in the community of Nambe. In addition, many of my earliest and best images were taken along this road. I urge anyone passing through Northern New Mexico to take this most beautiful route.

For more information on me or my art, send me an email.