Göteborg, Sweden Wet Plate Collodion Workshop

Thanks to everyone that attended the workshop: Aron, Manuel and Sara, Bosse and Alfia, and Anna and Markus. And a big thank you to Henning (www.timeunit.se). His kind heart and wonderful space made it all happen - he organized and provided space and shared his expertise on the process with the students.

I'll post more photos and tell you a story about these images later. I'm really tired and need to rest for a couple of days!

"Nordic Man" - 8.5" x 6.5" (Whole Plate) Black Glass Ambrotype September 6, 2009 Gotheburg, Sweden 
"Roger - From the Streets of Göteborg, Sweden" 4" x 5" Alumitype September 6, 2009

Exhibition In Paris, France

The website of Centre Iris Gallery for photographyI’ve had three photographic dreams my life. The first, to have a photographic exhibition of my work in Paris, France. The second, to have a book of my photographs published (a very nice 12” x 12” tri-tone, spot varnished images). And the third, to own and operate a (historical) photography school - the first three processes - Daguerreotypes, Calotypes and Wet Plate Collodion.

I’m happy to say that the first dream has come true! I’ve been invited to do a show in the center of Paris at a gallery called, “Centre Iris Pour La Photographie”. This is an incredible high for me. Paris is the birthplace of photography and the French, for the most part, really love and appreciate the art.

My exhibition will run from 9 March to 19 June, 2010. I will be doing a live demonstration of the process; I call them “performative lectures”, and a full-blown, two-day workshop during the exhibition, too.

This will be my second solo exhibition with my Wet Plate Collodion work. The show will consist of 50 – 60 pieces; Ambrotypes, Tintypes, Alumitypes, and Albumen prints (singles, diptychs, and triptychs). I’m going to exhibit both the, “Portraits from Madison Avenue” work and the, “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” work.

Wish me luck! I hope you can make the opening!

Whole Plate Collodion Negatives

Whole Plate Wet Collodion Negative - August 2009, Viernheim, Germany
Whole Plate Wet Collodion Negative - August 2009, Viernheim, Germany - (the streak is from "lens flare")
Wet Collodion Negatives are intense and a lot of fun. They take some pratice and there's no "high-wow" factor for the public, but they are really special for personal work and for POP (Albumen prints/Salt prints) prints.

Making Albumen Prints from Wet Collodion Negatives

Albumen printing is tricky, but pays off once you get it down.

Today, I was having issues with sensitizing the Albumen paper. I wanted to check the difference between the single coated and double coated paper that I made a coupe of weeks ago. I'm going to be floating a bunch this weekend and wanted to make sure that the double coated paper was worth the effort (it is!).

I used a Hake brush to sensitize (brushed the silver nitrate on the Albumen paper) and got some "measles" on one of the prints and "weakness" in areas of the other print. Tomorrow, I'm going to use the 3 minute float on the AGNO3 - it's much better.

So far, my German Albumen paper is "da bomb"! The final images on Albumen paper will be much better than these, but I wanted to show you the process - as you can see, it's not for pussies.

Checking the print in the contact frame. You can see I have some "brush strokes" there - weak silver from a previous batch in the brush - and my technique wasn't perfect either. Just some quick prints for testing.
Here, you can see those "measles" - other than that, it's okay. Keep in mind, these are "in camera" negatives, or foundation negatives, they have not been intensified or re-developed (yet). That's my next step - I'll compare Albumen prints - before and after.

 
This negative was a bit more dense (maybe 1.75) You can see the "silver issue" in the bottom right. Both of these images are gold toned.

Köln (Cologne), Germany Wet Plate Collodion Workshop

I spent the last couple of days teaching a workshop in Leichlingen, Germany (just outside of Köln). It was a great workshop – we had five participants: Vernon, Robert, Marcus, Artur, and Ugo. They made some wonderful images! Every student caught on fast and was up to speed making plates on their own in hours, amazing!

Vernon set up the studio space – it was very nice – ArtLight Studios. We made images with natural light and had two models to work with. I’m looking forward to seeing work from all of these guys, and Ugo, let’s talk about an exhibition in Belgrade, Serbia!

"Vernon Trent" - The first image of the workshop. This is made with window light and my Derogy lens - 12 seconds - 5"x7" Black Glass Ambrotype. 
Workshop student, Vernon Trent made this plate. A nice still life made with a Russian 5"x7" camera. This is an Alumitype. 
And another Alumitype. 
5"x7" Alumitype portrait from the workshop. 
And one more Alumitype - 5"x7"
There were about 30 plates made from the five students at the workshop.

Collodion Negatives & Waxed Albumen Prints

I’ve been working through making Albumen, Albumen paper, and started making negatives today. I really enjoy making work in my studio -  in my space. I feel completely in control and can get on the plate what’s in my mind more efficiently (lazy and scared, huh?).

Today, I was fortunate to have some very interesting sitters that were very cooperative. I only made four negatives, but I’m very pleased. I wanted to share one of those with you. I’ve been after these kinds of images in the negative form for a long time. The problem with making them, is keeping the sitters interested. I usually get them fired up after the first (positive) image. With negatives, however, there’s no “high wow” factor. It’s difficult, and it’s kept me from making this happen. No more, this is what I’m going to concentrate on for the foreseeable future (negatives and Albumen prints).

There a lot of things I like about this image; texture, light, expression, but most of all, I like what the image implies. It’s disturbing, or disorienting, and interesting to me.

4"x5" Wet Collodion Negative - Waxed Albumen Print

Shifting Priorities & Making Albumen

I've made a commitment to myself that I will spend more time making my personal work (completing my project here in Europe), and exhibiting/publishing my work. And I will spend less time teaching, answering email, and spending numerous hours on the public forum board.

Don't misunderstand me, I've enjoyed doing all of those things, but my priorities are going to shift to more personal goals - it's time to focus (pun intended)! My time will be spent making my personal work, following up on my commitments to the new book, DVD and web site and sharing some of my work and experiments with close friends. I'll still blog and I'll still post work occasionally, but I'm going to put more time toward my personal work - period. I'm an artist, and I want my life to reflect that.

I have a few workshops left this year and one scheduled for March of 2010. Other than those, and maybe one in Paris with a show, I probably won't do anymore workshops. I really enjoying teaching, but I need the time I have left here in Europe to complete what I came here to do.

It feels like a good time to do this, too. I think it was the completion the new book/DVD that allowed me to make this commitment to myself. It's like I can really focus now on making photographs. It's not that I want to close my site down, and become a recluse, I'm just seeking more balance. It seems that I'm always teaching or doing something instructional for other people. I've actually had a couple of people email me and tell me that they had no idea I made art. Those are not good emails! I know artists that don't even have a web site, don't answer email and are very successful making and showing work - doing their thing - no distractions. I'm envious of them and I need to follow their lead. It's true what people say, "You become what you do," and I've become a teacher when I want to be an artist (nothing wrong with being a teacher, but you know what I'm saying in this context).

Making Albumen

Friday, I stopped at a roadside Bauernmarkt where I get fruit and vegetables a couple of times a week. It's wonderful food. On Friday, I picked up 40 large eggs, too. They are big, fresh free-range chicken eggs. Dresden, Germany is a few hours north of us. It was the epicenter for Albumen paper in the 1860s - 1880s. They used 6 million eggs a year there! I'm hoping the genes of some of those chickens are in these!

Albumen Prints: The albumen found in egg whites are used to bind the photographic chemicals to the paper and became the dominant form of photographic positives from 1855 to the turn of the century, with a peak in the 1860-90 period.

There are very few people in the world today making Albumen prints with Collodion negatives.

It was the first commercially exploitable method of producing a photographic print on a paper base from a negative.

The albumen print, also called albumen silver print, was invented in 1850 by Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard.

Summer's going to be making a lot of custard!

2 Liters of Albumen!

Thanks to Summer and Jeanne for shooting photographs of me making Albumen today. images!

Chemical Pictures - It's Finished!

Well, I didn't provide salvation for mankind, but I did finish my book, DVD, and web site.

After an inordinate amount of time, money and obstacles, the Chemical Pictures book, DVD and web site is ready for prime time (opening next week - July 20 - Summer's 17th birthday).

I'm elated, but at the same time, relieved. This has been a trying task, to say the least. While I understand that it's not perfect, I am very happy with it. If I had a couple of lifetime's and all of the resources I needed at my disposal, I could probably do a better job, but this will be fine for now. I think the users will be happy with it, too.

I'm most excited to hear what people think. About half of the content is malleable - at least the web site portion - so if users have suggestions for making it better, I'm going to listen. It's dynamic, too. I will do monthly video podcasts on a wide variety of Collodion topics. The technical forum board (yes, another one) will be active as well - but without the "noise" you get on public boards.

My biggest hope is that the students of my system will understand what I've put together here and maximize the opportunity to have access to a live, dynamic learning system. I hope that they will see the value of spending time with each video, each chapter in the book and ultimately really grasp the process and moreover, enjoy it.

The web site opens on Monday, July 20, 2009 and the book and DVD begins shipping the first week in August.

National Resonator Guitar (Dobro)

Okay, I'll probably regret this - but what the hell - this is a snippet of me "hacking up" Mississippi Fred's, "You Gotta Move" today. It's a beautiful song - check it out here by The Stones.

I'll get better (timing, rhythm, notes, slide), just give me some time. This isn't something I share a lot of (for good reason). Please,  no nasty email!

I do enjoy pounding on this thing - it's very therapeutic for me. Sometimes, I can hit stuff that would give you chills, albeit only a note or slide or two, but it sounds great. Little riffs of Delta (super-swampy) metallic blues. This is my next big life project - I want to play in the streets, at parties, for friends, etc. I'll get there.

National guitars are known for having great tone and are all around sweet instruments.

(I took it down - someday, I may post another one).

Value, What Does It Mean To You?

I've been thinking a lot about value lately. The other night on NPR, there was a program about how Americans have lost the ability to discern what value is - they are confusing it with cheap.

It was based on buying cheap products that we know are "disposable" They used Ikea's business model as an example. That's no surprise, we've been trained to do that. Our options today are top-shelf (expensive) stuff or Wal-Mart. There's nothing that's well made for a reasonable cost available to us. At least not like the previous two options. I think our grandparents knew what value was (at one time). We've all been trained to buy cheap - get it as cheap as we can - use it and throw it away. We don't even look for quality - we look for cheap.

Quinn and his National Resonator Guitar aka, DobroIt got me thinking about photography. Photography has changed so much over the last 10 years, it's hardly recognizable to me. I don't want to sound like I'm stuck in 1851, or that I'm a Luddite, because I'm neither. My thoughts go to the word value, again. I wonder what's happened to "cheapen" photography so much?

Susan Sontag wrote that all photographs are meaningless and have no value. This was based on her belief that because we're inundated with so much imagery every day, it all becomes a big, blurry, meaningless mess. We are quick to dismiss images, or ignore them - I know I am. And Summer's (my daughter) generation seems to be far worse. This worries me and it also tells me that I can share some valuable information with those young whipper-snappers (as he reaches for his cane)!

When I'm out doing my "performances" there are some obvious things happening. There's a big wooden camera/brass lens and a portable darkroom set up - these are unique, not often seen items that draw attention. Moreover, there's something tangible in watching me "perform" and listening to my stories. They see quality, dedication and passion. They hear the narrative of photography - it gives meaning to them, even to the ubiquitous digital image.

The result of the "performance" is extraordinary, or special, to their eye (the image itself) mind and heart. Photography is universal, everyone understands the basic concept of what I'm doing, but I believe they recognize the value of what I'm doing.

And lastly, please don't think that the images I posted have any value - I just wanted to expose you to another set of meaningless images today.