Posted on August 30th, 2009 in Collodion Images, Collodion Workshops, Education, Europe, Wet Plate Collodion Instructional Videos | Leave A Comment
For all of you Chemical Pictures Members, I just uploaded the September Video Podcast. It’s all about exposure: Over, Under and Spot On. I show some working examples using my Cigar Box Guitar, and yes, I play a little bit, too - I hope you enjoy it.
Posted on August 27th, 2009 in Europe | 2 Comments
I’ve had two photographic dreams my whole life. One is to have a photographic exhibition in Paris, France and the other is to have a book of my photographs published (a very nice 12” x 12” tri-tone, spot varnished images).
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 2 March to 17 April, 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!
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 August 12th, 2009 in Art & Theory, Collodion Images, Collodion Workshops, Education, Europe, Wet Plate Collodion Instructional Videos | Leave A Comment
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.
