I attended his open house in Old Town last night. Ken and I spoke at length about their services and customer base. I brought along a D3X raw file from a recent aerial shoot to see how large he could take the image up and the quality of the print on Hahnemuhle Baryta paper.

The studio is on the second floor with sky lights and a clean open feeling. I looked at several sample prints: including an Obama election picture from Burnetti that was printed on three manufactures matte papers.

He is dividing his time between the Brooklyn and Alexandria studios. He has a solid client base in the DC region with museums and associations. After interviewing twenty-five people chosen from 300 applicants, Ken chose Patrick Allen (no relation) to work in the Alexandria location. Patrick spent a year flying up and down the east coast shooting aerials of Lighthouses. I thought that was a great introduction to this crazy business.

With my Chesapeake book close to sending off to the printer, I plan to host a show of very large aerials from the book.

Ken may be the studio that I work with to produce the limited edition prints from the project.

Contact: ken@kenallenstudios.com
Web site: kenallendigital. (Alexandria)
Web site: Ken Allen Studios (Brooklyn)
Phone: 917-853-0592

http://tinyurl.com/russia-color

Peasant girls, Russian Empire. Three young women offer berries to visitors to their izba, a traditional wooden house, in a rural area along the Sheksna River, near the town of Kirillov; 1909 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).

The book “One of Us” was co-published with support from Kodak and can be ordered on line. 100% of the $40 sales price goes to two Katrina relief organizations —The Gulf Coast Fund and/or Southern Animal Foundation (the purchaser gets to decide which one gets it or an even split between the two).

Chris Usher Video #1 on One of Us
Chris Usher Video #2

The show closes this Wednesday, January 7th, 2009.