Posted on August 22nd, 2009 in Art & Theory, Collodion Images, Europe, Family, Family & Friends, Summer Performs | Leave A Comment
Summer with my new CBG - Whole Plate Collodion Negative (wet)
August 22, 2009 - Viernheim, Germany
Summer with my new CBG - Whole Plate Collodion Negative (wet and with a flare!)
August 22, 2009 - Viernheim, Germany
Posted on July 25th, 2009 in Art & Theory, Collodion Images, Education, Europe, Family & Friends, Wet Plate Collodion Instructional Videos | Leave A Comment
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. They’re get images!
Posted on July 20th, 2009 in Collodion Images, Europe, Family, Family & Friends, Wet Plate Collodion Instructional Videos | Leave A Comment
It’s a special day today for three reasons. First, it’s Summer’s birthday! Happy Birthday Summer! It doesn’t seem like it was very long ago that I stayed up all night (Sunday night) with Jeanne and then witnessed your birth at 05:55, Monday morning - July 20th - 17 years ago! Wow! We love you Summer! You will also be our beautiful (baby) girl!
Secondly, today is the grand opening of STUDIOQ.INFO - my Wet Plate Collodion Online Workshop, book and DVD. Although the book and DVD doesn’t ship until the first week of August, the video workshop is online and there’s plenty to see and learn in the interim. I’m excited about the launch!
And last, but not least, are the images I made yesterday in Frankfurt. Jeroen (also known as Dr. Herr De Wijs), our friend from The Netherlands, came down and stayed the weekend with us. He got to experience the Höchst public art making fest, also known as Montmartre Am Main. Erick, an American living in Ladenburg (near us) also made the journey to Frankfurt and witnessed the Collodion portraiture and the public awe of the event. He brought his dog Clover, too. It was a good day. As always, people gathered around and, with great interest, spent some time in my world.
Summer played guitar and sang some songs - it was very nice to be in the dark-box listening to her music while I was processing plates. Jeanne talked with people and got to relax a little bit after a long hard week of administrating the VBS - she worked until 9PM or 10PM every night last week.
Here are some of the portraits - click on them to enlarge:
Greek Man - 4×5 Alumitype
Spanish Woman- 4×5 Alumitype
Greek Woman - 4×5 Alumitype
Romanian Girl - 4×5 Alumitype
Posted on April 26th, 2009 in Europe, Family, Family & Friends, Summer Performs | Leave A Comment
This weekend has been consumed with Summer’s play. It’s called, “Blithe Spirit”, by Noel Coward. The cast performed very well. It’s a play that is “dialogue heavy” and lasts almost three hours! Summer was the hit of the show - she got a lot of laughs and her performance was brilliant! She played Madame Arcati.
Blithe Spirit is a comic play written by Noel Coward which takes its title from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “To a Skylark” (”Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert”). The play concerns socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who is haunted by the ghost of his first wife, Elvira, following a séance held by the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati. Elvira makes continuous attempts to disrupt Charles’ marriage to his second wife, Ruth.
The play was first seen on the West End in London in 1941 and set a new long-run record for non-musical British plays of 1,997 performances. It also did well on Broadway later that year, running for 657 performances. Coward adapted the play for film in 1945, starring Rex Harrison, and directed a musical adaptation, High Spirits, on Broadway in 1964. It was also adapted for television in the 1950s and 1960s and for radio. The play enjoyed several West End and Broadway revivals in the 1970s and 1980s and was revived again in London in 2004. It returned to Broadway in February 2009. (copied from Wikipedia).
Summer as Madame Arcati - eccentric and funny.
Summer and her best friend Jacqueline (playing Ruth).
Madame Arcati basking in a moment of her own greatness.
Madame Arcati discovers the maid (played by Nads) can rid the house of the ghost wives.
Madame Arcati giving Ruth the lowdown on how to get rid of Elvira.
A photo from the original play (Aracti left) and Ruth and Elvira (right).
