PhotoMobile

A few years ago I had a conversation with my now wife Jennifer about coming up with a mobile photography program that could be booked by public schools and other organizations.  This is a topic that we have talked about more than once since the first conversation back in 2006, and I still feel that it is a good idea that I might act one someday.

While looking around online for information for an upcoming educators talk that I am going to be participating in for the Virginia Museum of Fine Art (VMFA) I ran across the site for the Photomobile Traveling Photography Center.  Here was what I had in mind and MORE!  It appears that the group in the UK has really pulled together a nice operation and hope that it is madly successful.

Finding the PhotoMobile site has recharged my thinking for the possibilities of mobile, on-demand photography education.

** The image above is linked to from the Photomobile website **

Borderland Artifacts

This is a wet-plate tintype of a water jug used by someone crossing the desert from Mexico into southern Arizona. This is a common sight littering the roadways and trails of Arizona along with the other artifacts that are left behind by those migrating north.

This jug has a red bandanna tied in a loop through the plastic handle which made it easier to carry. After living near the border for 10 years I had seen many of these jugs and began to notice how each one was unique and had some trace of the person who toiled to carry it.

While I worked on my short Borderlands project I began to collect some of the artifacts I found that had been left behind. These items include examples of water jugs, and fully loaded backpacks filled with the items someone thought they would need while crossing the desert.

Maybe I will continue to make plates of these items to see what they have to say.

**Note: The image of the plate has been flipped to make the text readable as in-camera tintypes are reversed from life. **

Portrait of Abu Ali al-Hasan

In about a week from now I will be giving a talk to a group of Virginia public school art teachers about photography history from about 1850 to 1900 as part of a program being provided by the Virginia Museum of Fine Art (VMFA). The overall program is focused on Impressionism and not really about photography other than how it impacted the impressionist painters of the 1870s. Im a bit of a sideshow and will talk about what was happening with photography during that time. We will also be making camera obscuras and digital pinhole cameras to give them simple ideas to take back to their classrooms.

Part of my task has been to provide lesson plans that the teachers can take back and use in their classroom to replicate some of the hands on things we will do. Although the camera obscuras and digital pinhole cameras have nothing really to do with what I will be talking about for the impressionist time period, they are projects well suited for the classroom. To add in a great historical connection I will be providing information on Abu Ali al-Hasan, commonly thought of as the father of optics. Al-Hasan was born in Basra Iraq in 950 and died in Egypt around 1040 and was the first recored person to take pinhole optics from the theoretical realm to the experimental. He gives the first correct explanation of vision, showing that light is reflected from an object into the eye and would use a camera obscura to help prove this.

Over the weekend as I spent two days in my darkroom experimenting with the wet-plate collodion process the topic of al-Hasan was still in my mind. I thought of what he might look like, so I made a portrait of the great mathematician. By the end of the day I had collected a group of al-Hasan portraits as I tried multiple exposure and development time combinations. The image above shows the 5×7 plates drying in the rack.

I Could Be A Terrorist

The ability to make images with a camera freely in the world is slowly being eroded away.  Making images in public means two things, you are a child molester searching for your next crime or you are planning a terrorist attack.  This is fact….in some people minds and government think-tanks.  Grab some coffee and read this.

Larkin at The Whitney ArtParty

Dear friends, I am happy to pass along details of the 2008 Whitney Art Party auction! My personal friend and artist Matt Larkin has donated the above plate to be included in the event. To get in on the bid action from the comfort of your own home or office just click here.

Details about Matt from the Whitney ArtParty site:

“Matthew Larkin is an artist and designer whose work in various media has appeared in publications such as the New York Times, Domino, and House and Garden. His photography has been included in Alternative Photography: Art and Artists Edition 1, and a monograph of his work, Suspended in Time, published in March 2007, was the recipient of a New York Bookbinders’ Guild award for photography.”

** Image above by Matt Larkin **

Casualty List

KODAK PROFESSIONAL READYLOAD Single-Sheet Packets and Holder:
Preannounced Discontinuance

Due to significantly declining sales volume, Kodak is preannouncing the discontinuance of READYLOAD Single-Sheet Packets for four films.

The items listed below will be discontinued by year-end 2008. However, inventories may run out before then, depending on demand.

READYLOAD Discontinuances:

• KODAK PROFESSIONAL T-MAX 100 Film
• KODAK PROFESSIONAL PORTRA 160VC Film
• KODAK PROFESSIONAL EKTACHROME Film E100G
• KODAK PROFESSIONAL EKTACHROME Film E100VS
• KODAK PROFESSIONAL READYLOAD Packet Film Holder

Bats

Over the past weekend I was able to finish an experiment even though we had visitors at the house. I have been playing with bats as of late and have enjoyed the time just playing. It is nice to go into the darkroom after a long day of “real life” and loose yourself in an image that only lives in you mind, and using chemicals to make it real. I love having the darkness to escape to…..much like a bat

The image above is a multiple plate dry-plate emulsion positive on aluminum. The total image size is 7×15″

Stayvation 2008

Well even though I have a great paying day job, the cost of living has made it seem like I am 18 years old and a private in the Army again scraping to to get by. I love to take road trips, exploring for images to make, but the cost of gas has put a stop to that. Frankly I feel like I have been put into a cage. Enter the era of the Stayvation!

This past holiday weekend was the first time of real occupation of my new darkroom and what a grand treat it was. Long gone are the days of a sore back from bending over very low tables, and wasting materials because of too little light or storage pace. The light leaks in basement walls and rafters of the Arlington house seem like a fading dream. I cannot say enough about the need to have a proper work space no matter what type of work you are doing.

The weekend was spent planing with dry-plate (FYI not collodion based) image making both in-camera with the 5×7 Kodak (see image above) and contact printing. This time in the darkroom was just for playing, to just make something after a very long dormant period which started as the Irvine Contemporary show went up in January. It felt good to play. No masterclass images were made, but great fun was had.

I also took the time to mix up some fresh wet plate chemicals. Ah….the smell of collodion fills the air. Sure it is not good for you but if you have ever been around it you will find that you just cant help wanting to catch a wiff on the breeze. A new batch of “Old Reliable” (see above) is in the process of settling out and should be ready in about a week.

Complete - Darkroom

For the most part the darkroom is complete.  Finally a proper space to work and create.  There remain small things to take care of, to smooth the edges if you will, but the major work is over.  This weekend will find me in this new space working to reintroduce my inner child to the world again, it is time to play.

This afternoon I will be mixing up a batch of collodion to use in some wet-plate experiments sometime soon.  The activities this weekend will be mostly related to helping Jennifer (my wife) with a Liquid Light based project she is going to try which will be part of a group show in Richmond.  I will also take this time to make some dry-plate test of my own in preparation for a project that I have been thinking about since the past winter in Arlington.  It feels good to be on the edge of working again.

As I worked to put the darkroom together over the past few weeks I could not help but think I had to be one of only a few people in the country BUILDING a darkroom in this time of digital explosion and the offical “death” of film being reported from Japan.  I could not help but think of something I read not too long ago:

“When particular tools and materials disappear (because knowledge of how to make or use them is lost), artistic possibilities are lost as well.”

Art & Fear, Page 58, Paragraph #2

Late News - Resurrection

This is some late news, but two friends of mine have work in the 23Sandy Gallery show Resurrection which is now running. Only a few days remain ( till May 31st) until the show comes down, so I hope that if you happen to be in Oregon you will drop by to take a look. In the very least maybe you will buy a exhibition catalog. Congratulations to my friends Matt Larkin and David Prifti for having work selected for the exhibition.

The Hardest Part

” The hardest part of artmaking is living your life in such a way that your work gets done, over and over - and that means, among other things, finding a host of practices that are just plain useful. A peice of art is the surface expression of a life lived within productive patterns.”

The quote above is from the book Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland. I have owned this book for many years now but have not touched it since I first read it soon after my arrival in Missoula Montana during the summer of 2004. That was a very important time as I had just left Iraq and was trying to point my life in a new direction, one in which my photography would play a much larger role.

Over the past year it has been hard for me to find my stride with my vision. I have felt blinded and unable to get on with making much new. There are many reason for this, some real and some imagined, and I feel that I will write about a few of the more sinister ones here soon. But this morning, after reading the above last night before falling to sleep, I can say that my life recently has not been lived within PRODUCTIVE patterns.

Slow Progress - Darkroom

For a while now I have been writing about (or not writing) how it seems that I have not had much time for anything since the move to Richmond. There is no doubt my creative life has been turned upside down by my last two yearly moves, but I am trying to get back on track.

I have spoke of working on my new darkroom a few times, and there is progress although it is coming slow. Since I am trying t get back into the habit of posting here often I thought that I would share an image of the darkroom in progress. Much effort was spent on painting the walls and removing the carpet that was on the concrete floor and replacing that with a nice gray paint. The project last weekend was the beginning of the tables which you can see in the image above. Next activities include tops to the tables and ventilation!

Kendrick - Changelings

Well I knew that I was behind in many things, including my photography work, writing on this blog, sending emails to friends, and keeping up with the latest photographic news. The last point was confirmed this weekend as I thumbed through the March/April issue of View Camera. I had known that Robb Kendrick had published a new book of cowboy tintypes, but had no idea of a project that he is working on that is of great interest to me. In the March/April issue of View Camera is a small collection of Kendrick’s Changelings work, of which two images can be seen above. The work is 4×5 wet-plate tintypes of Mexican mummies.

For more information about this work take a look at this interview on the Unblinking Eye. Changelings is being offered in a limited edition book (100 only) by Cloverleaf Press. For $3500 you can score the book, a signed print, AND two original Kendrick tintypes! Hurry hurry hurry. I have contacted Cloverleaf for info on availability and have not heard back from them yet, so it may be too late so good luck.

Changelings is the start of a much larger project Kendrick says in his interview with Unblinking……I cant wait to see the rest of it!

Listen to Robb Kendrick on NPR here talking about his latest cowboy project Still.

** Images above by Robb Kendrick **

Race Day

Yesterday was the US Air Force Cycling Classic which started at the US Air Force Memorial and blazed through the streets of Crystal City Virginia.

This event has turned into an annual event for me to cover for the fine folks at the Crystal City BID. The image above is an early morning shot taken of extra wheels on top of a team support car (SAAB - one of the event sponsors) with the USAF Memorial in the background.

The weather and racing were perfect. A few more images may follow after I have delivered to the client.

Time Span

A rare image of myself. A self portrait made at a forgotten bridge across the James River in Virginia. How many times have you said something is “water under the bridge”? What happens when the bridge is gone?