Taking you on an intimate journey into George’s work, Battistella’s camera follows Tatge as he does the delicate dance of placing his tripod and manufacturing his frame. It’s a portrait and unique peek into a process that George has never or rarely shared, preferring to work alone for his entire career and rarely ever with an assistant. 

Tatge’s expressive words and descriptions transport the viewer into the inner workings of his transformation into exploring color after composing images for presentation of his colorless but graphically powerful landscapes and portraits taken across Italy during an illustrious career. 

A must-see film for art and photography enthusiasts or for anyone wanting to better comprehend the process of an artist who makes fine art photographs in this day and age of disposable digital imagery.

In 2012 filmmaker David Battistella was awaiting shipment of a brand new digital cinema camera. The first film he wanted to create with this digital marvel needed to be a recognition of celluloid film. He went searching and met with photographer George Tatge who was still producing images with his Deardorf View camera and 5×7 inch sheet film. 

The two got to know each other and Battistella produced and directed ‘Light and Silver’: The photographic life of George Tatge, released in 2014. 

The title refers to the chemical silver process required to produce black and white images and have them magically appear from a chemical and water solution. 

The two men remained friends and the film screened from Las Vegas (as part of a special 4k film series) to Pordenone, Italy. The film was also screened as a special event at the Palazzo Touranbuoni Club in Florence where George and David had a live discussion about Analog vs. Digital photography with their respective cameras on display. 

Flash forward to 2020 when George presented his first public displays of his color work, after 35 years of working in Black and White, with shows in Livorno and Pistoia. The moment Battistella saw the shows, he initiated the dialog with George to produce a second film, this time with the focus on George’s new photographic direction in a world of color. 

And so, ‘Light and Color’ was born.

PHOTOGRAPHER

George Tatge was born in Istanbul in 1951 of an Italian mother and American father. He lived in Europe and in the Middle East most of his youth and studied English Literature at Beloit College in Wisconsin, where he also began photographing under the guidance of the Hungarian photographer Michael Simon.

In 1973 he moved to Italy where he worked in Rome as a journalist and then in Todi, Umbria, where he lived for 12 years working as a freelance photographer and writer (reviews for Art Forum). His first exhibition in Italy was in 1973 at the Diaframma Gallery in Milan. His first book, Perugia terra vecchia terra nuova, came out in 1984.

From 1986 to 2003 he was Director of Photography at the Alinari Archives in Florence.