About the artist
D. (Donald) Jesse May is a visual artist based in Switzerland.
Jesse began working with black and white film during university studies. Since then he has worked in 35mm, medium format and large format film, eventually settling on large format film. In 2012, he started experimenting with digital imaging, using a 35mm rangefinder digital camera (Leica M9). He continued to produce only darkroom prints due to his preference for the “look” of these kinds of prints. At this point his reference for print quality was 4x5 film printed on fiber-based paper.
In 2016, Jesse tried a medium format digital camera (Leica S Typ 006), in order to see how the resulting prints compared with prints from 4x5 film. The results were very good and Jesse started to work with digital imaging also.
Jesse's prints are in private and business collections in Europe and North America.
Jesse is an aspiring musician (cello and bass), who sees many similarities between a finished print and a musical performance.