When Paul Plaine was growing up in the Bronx in the 1950s and 1960s, “art” in any of its manifestations was not something the average young boy talked about with his parents as a possible career. Plaine was no exception to this rule; his father, a bus driver, and his mother wanted to hear lawyer, police officer or firefighter when the discussion turned to future careers, not “artist,” the White Plains-based graphic artist, giclee printer, photographer and baseball enthusiast and historian said in a recent interview.
He ended up settling on accountant as a career choice, but he soon found it wasn’t his calling, and with the cautious blessing of his wife, Nell (the couple have lived in Greenburgh for over 30 years), he got into graphic arts, mostly for advertising. In 1986, he and Terry Chamberlain started the first digital professional lab for advertising in the country, doing retouching and color work for Estee Lauder, Absolut and other prominent brands. The partners later started Plaine & Chamberlain Ltd. (plainechamberlain.com), which specializes in giclee printing (fine art reproduction), museum-quality art capture and Web gallery development.

Plaine said he and Chamberlain have an “unbelievable working relationship,” adding “we can argue and get mad and it’s not personal; it’s about the product.” But Plaine’s latest venture is as a solo artist, and it’s based on his love of baseball, baseball photography, and specifically Yankee Stadium, whose shadows he grew up under. BallparkPrints.com, which Plaine is operating out of the same office that houses Plaine & Chamberlain (in the Arts Building at 31 Mamaroneck Ave.), will offer high-quality, custom-made prints of the original Yankee Stadium (including photos from the original construction), the refurbished stadium that opened in 1976, and the new stadium, on a site near the current stadium, scheduled to open for the 2009 season, as well as other ballpark- and baseball-related prints. Plaine has taken about 2,700 photos just of the new stadium’s construction (see pages 10 and 11 for a gallery of stadium photos old and new that he has shot or owns the rights to). He has shot construction of the new stadium, begun in 2006, from nearby rooftops, and he plans to do helicopter shots as well.

A Passion Begins
As a fan and amateur photographer in his younger years, Plaine took photos of many games and stages of construction at Yankee Stadium: the last game before the stadium closed for refurbishment, the first game when it reopened, and so on. He always thought of making prints of his shots, especially when he was working at his advertising lab, but it wasn’t until he and Chamberlain attended a trade show in 1999 that he realized the technology was starting to catch up with his vision and a printer that could handle the work (that is, that could achieve museum-quality prints on many types of papers) was on the market. After selling his extensive baseball memorabilia collection, he started to buy prints, negatives and publishing rights at auctions and to research copyrights; he currently owns many of the rights to the collection of Ozzie Sweet (1918-), who has been called “the Norman Rockwell” of photography and “the Babe Ruth of sports photography” (Plaine called him the latter). Plaine said he would not seek to modernize the Sweet prints he owns; “he shot a certain way,” he said, and that will be respected. He might restore some photos, he added, “but not if something will disrupt the integrity of the photo.”

So BallparkPrints.com will offer custom-made prints and even boxed sets that Plaine wants to serve as a story, since he owns prints from the original excavation in 1922 to the new-stadium construction going on to this day. He will custom-make and inspect each print, and boxed sets will come with a pair of white gloves for loving and reverential handling. He does not want his offerings to be prohibitively expensive, he said; he’s planning on selling boxed sets for about $200 and many framed photos for less than that.

“I love the images,” Plaine said, “and I think people will find them enjoyable. For baseball fans, it’s preserving something.” He’s been told he could charge a lot more for the prints than he plans to, but he wants to make sure that almost any fan who wants to can own a piece of the game they love. It’s simple, really, why he’s showing this loyalty to his fellow fan.

“I love the past,” he said, “and I love the game.”