oseph Holmes has been singularly devoted to photographing and rendering the beauty found within wild landscapes for over thirty-three years. His eventual choice to work primarily in color, however, resulted in a long and arduous process of exploring and building upon the many methods by which color photographic prints could best be made. For twenty-six years, technique has been the main issue, and is only now essentially resolved as an obstacle to satisfactory realization of his vision.   "In retrospect it is clear that when I began the quest for optimal printing of color photographs, color photography was as much as a century behind black & white in its development, depending on how you look at it. Only recently, thanks primarily to advances in silicon technologies and the avalanche of related methods and innovations, has color photography reached essential maturity as an art form."   So although Joe has spent many years making his own prints using dye transfer, Cibachrome, and pigment transfer processes, among others, his already long career is in a sense, beginning anew. To date he has three books, eleven calendars, twenty-two posters, and many other publications to his credit, as well as having many original prints in collections around the world. In addition to being highly respected as a landscape photographer and printmaker, in recent years he has become widely known in digital imaging circles as a leader in the quest for perfection in imaging, and the creator of a few of the many new tools for imaging which are changing the way photographs are made.   "I am delighted to be able to take both my newer images and my many older favorites and finally see them in a print as I envisioned them in the scene, and especially gratified that these prints are apt to last for many generations on display, much like a fine black & white print or an oil painting.   "I dearly hope that, with the help of work such as mine, the consciousness of the world's people can be raised sufficiently regarding our relationship to the Earth as to insure that beauty, biological diversity and real freedom will not cease to be abundant in our future."   -- Joseph Holmes