George Wiedenhofer has a keen eye. His business card reads “Experience Captured.”

Indeed it does, and that’s one of the reasons his photo prints are on display at the Lakewood Memorial Library, 12 W. Summit St., through the end of October.

Wiedenhofer retired in 2018 to follow what he calls his passionate hobby.

“I’ve done photography all my life. It’s what I know. But I needed a new approach to it. … So even though I’ve done photography for a long time, I wanted the best of the different variations of things that I had to get accomplished,” he said.

“Mirrored Tranquility” by George Wiedenhofer is displayed at the Lakewood Memorial Library.

His No. 1 goal was to get a camera that was worthy of capturing his visions, so he purchased a medium-format digital camera. His next goal was to have longevity, so he researched what kind of paper it would take to achieve his goal. He settled on paper made in Echizen, Japan, and said the paper can last 900-plus years because no chemicals are used, just materials from a mulberry bush.

From his medium-format digital photos, he makes one-of-a-kind platinum/palladium prints with the hand-made paper and carbon-based ink.

He said the ink is embedded into the fibers of the paper, and the ink doesn’t sit on the surface of the paper. He noted that the one-of-a-kind prints can’t be duplicated.

Wiedenhofer said the one reason that he was looking into longevity or being able to preserve his prints was that environments can change over time, so his prints freeze slices of time, so someone maybe 500 years from now, can see what something changed or not.

“My photos used for this special printmaking process is strictly the natural world. I do this to help make the impermanence of our shared natural world as permanent as possible. Due unmatched longevity, these prints can be used to study changes of our shared environment for many generations. This is my passion,” he said.

The medium-format digital camera that George Wiedenhofer uses. Submitted photo

His prints are 20 inches by 16 inches, and because of the unique paper size, he had to develop his own lightbox, and his own contact print method. The hand-made paper doesn’t come in stacks, but rather in stacks, he said.

“To bring these binary digital files to life I have embarked on a quest to find the longest lasting paper combined with a carbon-based print process to provide photos lasting hundreds of years. With an attention to detail, each image is constructed to resemble an 1870s era printmaking technique called platinum/ palladium prints. Using only handmade Japanese Koso paper and museum quality framing these carbon based prints can last over 400 years,” Wiedenhofer said.

His photos, he said, have very limited compensations applied and he never uses Photoshop to manipulate or alter any images.

If you visit the exhibit, you will see a caption near each print, explaining how he took each photo.

One print is entitled “Mirrored Tranquility” and was captured at Yosemite National Park in California. It was a finalist in Outdoor Photographer’s – Great Outdoors Photo Contest 2022. He wrote in the caption that the park has its advantages in February as there are limited people in the valley and the Sierra Nevada Mountains haven’t yet shed their ice and snow.

“Each photograph captured includes years of design experience to compose and highlight the natural beauty as I envision it,” he said.

According to lakewoodlibrary.org, the action was risky, but the 26 women who gathered in Mrs. Grant Gruel’s living room at 8 Ivy Lane in Lakewood, on May 20, 1960, were determined. No one hesitated to sign her name to the document which affirmed the founding of the Lakewood Library Association. Lakewood lawyer, Joseph Gerace, completed all the legal paperwork necessary for state approval.In October 1960 the Association received the Provisional Charter that was the basis for the creation of the library.

For more information call (716) 763-6324 or email info@lakewoodlibrary.org.