Alex Schneideman
Peter Rauter was my photographic mentor and great friend. He died in 2004 leaving a set of portraits of some of the leading thinkers, artists and business people each of whom arrived in the UK because they were fleeing fascism.
They all made their homes here and contributed widely to the cultural, political and business scene of post-war Britain. Peter Rauter's own family are from this emigrant stock, indeed his father, a musician, is featured in the collection of photographs.
I helped Peter on some of these shoots and printed some of the original prints. In the beginning Peter used the "lith' method of printing which produced wonderfully erratic, warm, tonal prints. The next set, which are now in the collection of the Jewish Museum in London, were made in the traditional silver-gelatin method. Now it falls to me to make some new prints. I am doing this by scanning the original negs and printing them as inkjets. In order to reflect the highly 'human' nature' of the portraits I am printing them as 'Black Only' pigment ink prints. This method allows more light to 'slop around' in the print and restores some 'warmth' to digital printing.
Alex Schneideman, January 2011
