One Mans Trash…

…is another mans treasure.

There is something wonderful about sitting in the dark and projecting 35mm slides (recovered from someones trash) onto the wall. Maybe it is because it just is not done much any more. The hum of the cooling fan mixed with the mechanical “kerchunk” as the carousel advances, dropping the next image in front of the brilliant white light. The dust floating on the air in front of the bean of light cutting the dark. The reflected light of the image dimly illuminating the room.

This image is like others I have been posting to Flickr. It is a digital photograph of multiple slides projected over each other. Yes, I could use my digital film scanner to accomplish the same thing with much greater quality, but then I would be missing the entire sensory experience of the projection.

Most of the recovered slides that I have been playing with are Kodak Kodachrome which Kodak announced this week would be killed off and added to the growing listed of discontinued film based photographic products.  I cant help but think about the fact that industrial  production is such a major force in the photographic arts.  Painters, sketch artist, sculptors, glass blowers……are the works they are able to produce as closely tied to the offerings of manufactures as photographers?

The fact that I was given the opportunity to explore a few large boxes of discarded art educational slides the same month that Kodak announces the kill off of Kodachrome means something.  What exactly that meaning might be I am not sure other than change always comes and sometimes it is a sad thing.

Book Worm

One thing that is great about working in old photographic processes (or at least one thing that I like) is that you cant find out everything just by searching Google . It takes some effort and investigation to track down the information needed.  Sure there are many places offing basic information to get a person going quickly making images. There is  also help with troubleshooting for the most common bumps that come about.  The deeper and more involved you get the more you find that not all the answers are on that forum you might have joined.  Well, you will be happy to know that there are still some vintage photography books floating about in that weird used bookstore that you have seen but never gone into that just might have the answers you seek.

Lucky for me I love old books so when I do happen to find one on photography it is a double win.  Of course many that I find do not have anything of value for what I do because of the time it was published the the photographic processes popular at that time.  But from time to time I do fine something that is interesting if just from a reference standpoint like the books shown above.  The dark one is from 1927 and was found in Vermont last summer and is the first edition of Photography : Its Principles and Practice by C. B. Neblette.  Neblette was the Director of the photography division of Pennsylvania State College.  The red book is a new accusision made this week for $6.00.  It is The Science & Practice of Photography by John R. Roebuck published in 1920.  Roebuck was an assistant professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin.

The Neblette book was purchased because of all of the great images and diagrams of apparatus no longer commercially available for photographic work.  Many vintage text will reference an item such as a plate drying box (see above) but will give no description of its physical form as it was commonplace at the time of publication and clarification was not needed.  To build one today you are left to your own devices to create the design.  So to find a book loaded with diagrams to enrich the text was exciting and worth the price to have in my library.

The book by Roebuck is very interesting because it is an actually college level course book with a lab section in the back.  The Part II which is the lab section contains instructions to the students on evaluation requirements, required supplies, and darkroom setup for the included 24 “Experiments” which range from basic chemical mixing, to lantern slide creation and carbon printing.  I was very interested in the extensive gelatin dry plate sections (see above) and the fact that one of the experiments in the lab section was the making of wet collodion plates.  Because of the discovery of this book I am now interested in investigating at what time did the teaching of wet plate image making fall out of favor in the college environment.

So the point is this, great knowledge is still availible out there for the rapidly dissapearing historical photographic processes.  Even so there is no dount that it is indeed gettng harder to find as these great old books dissappear.  Be on the look out!  You never know where you might find that $6 treaure trove of historic information…..but I am pretty positive it will  not be on your Kindle.

Phil Returns to Artomatic!

I am sorry if you might have been a bit excited by the title of this post.  If you did that means that you were one of the people who really enjoyed seeing my Arizona Graves tintypes at Artomatic 2007.  Well…I am sorry to say that because of current obligations I am not available for Artomatic again, but I did make an appearance yesterday.  You see I was a “hired gun” of sorts.  I was supporting my wife in her efforts to pull together a display for some of her large format work in a compressed amount of time.  Although in the image above I don’t look too happy, I was goofing for the camera as always…..we had a fun time.

The concept for the display is informed by the subject of the images which are abandoned and raised shopping centers and strip malls found in the Richmond VA. area.  The unfinished plywood of the wall worked nice in bringing the visual texture of boarded windows into the display space.  It was fun not having to be spot-on with the set up, with the pencil reference lines etc left in place.  Although not the original idea, the natural space we found worked well and allowed us to avoid multiple trips to D.C. from Richmond.

If your going to be in Washington D.C. during the next few weeks you might just want to check out the good, bad, and the ugly that makes Artomatic what is it.

Four Days of Darkness

Over the past four days I have spent most of my waking hours in the darkroom.  Compelled by a sudden burst of visions and ideas I confined myself to the darkness of my small lab.  That is the way it is for me, the sudden burst of creative activity I mean.  I have friends that seem to be able to create at will, whenever they happen to have a moment of free time.  They just sit down and get on with making art.  For me it is a bit more painful because I will want to create but the ideas, focus, or energy just are not there.  Then there are other times like this weekend when there is not enough time in the day or supplies in the lockers to bring everything into the world.

Above is a large dry plate image that was made on May 15, 2009.  It is the largest dry plate image that I have ever attempted at 18×13” (height x width).  No matter how much experience one has with pouring plates (dry plate or wet collodion) the larger the plate the more sweat that naturally forms on your brow.

Technicalities aside, it is the weight of a large plate that I find most attractive.  Although plate photography in all its forms I find very attractive visually, it is the involvement of the hands that draws me most I think.  The act of creating something with the hands seems so powerful.  Add in some tears and blood caused by mystery chemical problems, cuts from sharp glass, and lost “perfect” images due to fate and you have the ultimate combination of elements to draw me like a moth to an open flame.

The image above is part of an ongoing project exploring a wide range of thoughts which are centered on the natural world and our interaction and impact with/on it.  Study of cabinets of curiosities has played a large part in the direction of the images so far.  As time moves on and the collection grows the images are changing adding an interesting visual record of the transformation of my ideas.  Most of these images get posted to my Flickr account and often broadcast on Facebook.  Many photographers and artist only release completed work for the world to see, hiding their screw-ups and transitions in direction in the closets of their studios.  The reasons for this are numerous from the idea they should present the image of the master who never makes a mistake, or are insecure in showing work that it not guaranteed to be received as great.  There is something to be said for showing a tightly edited body of work and I fully support this approach, but I feel that being open (to a point) is important too.  I do not show the massive amount of complete junk that comes from my darkroom but I do not mind showing the process of building a complete body of work. At the risk of seeming too open I enjoy letting others see what I am making…the good, bad, and the ugly.

Legends – Work in Progress

The three black glass ambrotypes (wet plate) above were made over the past weekend.  In fact they were made in the afternoon after a morning of working another portrait session.  The whole day was plagued with problems which ranged from poorly cleaned plates, to exposure issues (see above), and just general juju not working.  The day was challenging, and early on I thought that it might be best to call it quits and limit my losses.  In the end the day work out well enough with having friends over and burning through a good amount of VERY aged collodion which is about shot.

The images above are part of a project that I am calling Personal Legends.  Personal Legends is a collection of wet plate collodion portraits of people that I know. To take just a slightly different view of the portrait, the Personal Legend plates focus on an object that the subject has chosen to hold and not the persons face. The object represents something deep and defining about who the person thinks they are. This project is about how we see ourselves as much as how we want to be seen.  Although still very early on in the process of exploration of this project many interesting things are already starting to show themselves.  I am looking forward to see how the work evolves as I live with the idea more.

The other Personal Legends can be seen in this Flickr Set.

Between The Rain – World Wet Plate Collodion Photography Day 2009

Yesterday was World Wet Plate Collodion Photography Day.  Although the weather in the Richmond Va area was cloudy and damp with scattered rain showers I was able to make the above black glass ambrotype.  Having written off the day to the weather I noticed a pattern in the weather with small breaks between the rain.  Checking the online weather radar I thought that I might have enough time to set up, mix developer, and make a plate.  In the end it was pretty fun trying to race the weather and work with wet collodion.

The plate shows a human infant skull (which is a specimen on loan) placed in an old bird nest.  The plate was made sometime in the second half of the 1700 hour of the day as some brighter light broke through a thinning in the cloud cover.  The image is on black glass and was exposed in the 5×7 camera through Darlot optics.

Honey Dipped

“Go to the bee, and learn how diligent she is. What a noble work she produces, whose labour kings and private men use for their health! She is desired and honored by all, and though weak in strength, yet since she values wisdom she prevails.” (Proverbs)

This is the first Personal Legend wet plate tintype of 2009. After a winter break the collodion flows again! This image is of a young Richmond artist and future art educator.

Other Legends can be found below:

Harvest
O’ Mandolin
Gold Bug
The Deerslayer

Today is the 1st annual Wet Plate Photography (as noted in the previous post) day honoring the accomplishments of Fredrick Scott Archer who has been given credit for the discovery of using collodion for photography.  Although glass negatives (silver chloride) had been produced by Sir John Herschel in and around 1839, it was Archer’s discovery that would make glass negatives common more than a decade later.

Plagued by scattered thundershowers in the Richmond area today I thought that I would not make any collodion images due to the weather.  That was until a break in the rain and clouds appeared and I hurredly set up the camera and prepared chemicals at the last minute.  Racing against a new wave of approaching rain I was able to expose three black glass plates which are still drying.  Although the results are not masterpeices, it felt good to give the ole 5×7 some freash air and smell some collodion.  An image of one of the plates from today will be posted tomorrow if all goes well.

World Wet Plate Collodion Photography Day

Today is the first wet plate photography day. Find details here.

Diffusion Magazine Is Born

Blue Mitchell who is an artist and internet contact of mine who lives in Portland Oregon has started up a new art/image magazine.  Blue contacted me a while back about featuring some of my Iraq work at platestopixels.com when that first got going.  To help support his new effort I have posted information below that Blue sent in an email a while back .  My hope is that you will think about supporting this new publication buy buying a few copies of the publication.

From Blue Mitchell, the editor of Diffusion Magazine:

It seems every week learn of a newspaper or magazine that is going under, most likely due to increased reliance on the internet, coupled with current economic problems. Unfortunately, am probably part of the problem. Outside of public radio in the morning, turn to the internet for my daily news. The internet also host a plethora of art related resources, making art appreciation more accessible. do however find myself annoyed with the limitations of this online art world. To me photography is visceral. It can not be bound by a monitor and mouse clicks – it is best showcased in a tangible form. Don’t get me wrong, have immensely enjoyed curating for the virtual gallery platestopixels.com. This magazine would probably not be possible without my experiences and the outstanding response to the Plates to Pixels gallery. The main problem have come across in the online world of art is that would like to have hard-copies of magazines, books and images that can grasp with my fingers.

Diffusion is born out of a longing to create something palpable as well as enticing, educational, and hopefully entertaining. have a keen interest as an artist – and art consumer – in photographers that push the boundaries and limitations of traditional photographic processes. Although surround myself with artwork from photographers that push these boundaries, have discovered, outside of physical exhibitions and online, that this type of photographic work is underrepresented in the modern photography magazine.

Diffusion is a compilation of articles, interviews, and images from artists and image-makers that coincide with this purpose. The magazine will be published annually, however, we will be producing special editions periodically that will focus more on specific themes and will not be limited to the photographic arts.

Thanks for reading and viewing, plus a big thank you to all the Diffusion contributors, this could not have happened without all your patience, incredible image-making, and exceptional writing abilities.

Recent Explorations

The image above is a black glass dryplate (silver gelatin) diptych that I recently made.  My dryplate work continues to explore the natural form of mainly flying insects and mammals such as bats.  Recently I have begun to explore the juxtaposition of types of insects that would naturally not be found together or that appear to be working in concert for a common end.  In a way I feel that I am working toward a visual narrative of the natural worlds rebellion against humans and the situations we bring upon the environment.  Along with interesting combinations of subjects I have also started to introduced weapons and other human created elements to play with scale, intention and capability of the insects depicted.

The visual complexity of the images are naturally changing to meet the ideas in my mind.  The work is moving away from the pure scientific single specimin image that call to the beginnings of photography with the works of Anna Atkins, William Henry Fox Talbot, and Sir John Hershel to something more.  The images are fictional but strangly real as well.  What does the future hold?

$62,500

So many of you must have seen this in the news as my blog got lots of hits from Google searches looking for details on this story.  It was as good day for Dags I would say.  Just as the numbers of people getting into making wet colldodion images is on a sharp rise, the number of those working with daguerreotype making is also increasing.  I find it great that the sale of a vintage dag made national news, although I am sure it was just because of the sale price.

The image above was sold at auction to an anonomus bidder for $62,500.  A great price given the economic state of things wouldnt you say?  The Image above has been linked to from CNN and the full story as they reported it can be seen here.

Gerald Peter’s Gallery – John Coffer Video

Last year John Coffer had a show at Gerald Peter’s Gallery in New York City of his Daily Tintype project. A fine video of John working with his large camera on the coffer farm was made for the occasion.  I did not have the pleasure of seeing the show in person, but I did have the opportunity to have John tell me about the plate making progress via letters we shared last year.  Checking in with his web site today has reminded me that it has now been a very long time since I last wrote to him.

The image above is a mammoth plate by John which was hand colored with powdered pastel prior to varnishing with sandarac varnish.

Trees

The trees are dying, at least here in Virginia it seems that way.  From trees around my house, to those in the park across the river, and those along the highway west of here seem to be dying off.  If they are not dying standing from drought, disease, or insects they are being clear-cut for paper.  I would say that it’s a local thing, but having been around I have seen the thousands of acres of evergreens turning red out west because of beetles or turned to black ash by fire.  And although I have never been to the Amazon I have heard my whole life about it being cut and burned.  All of this has been weighing on my mind as I wonder why nobody else seems to notice or care.

For a while I had wanted to use one of my old Kodak box cameras to make small wet plate tintypes but just have not got around to it.  While I cleaned up the darkroom last weekend I noticed that I had a batch of collodion well on its way to being about too old to use so I thought that I would make some small plates.  I had modified the box camera a while back so all I had to do what get the chemicals out and thing of a subject to point the camera at.  A few hours earlier I had been watching some birds in the trees of my backyard.  It seemed a great subject to waste some aging material on for the sake of “testing”.

Sometimes the simplest act or intention can lead to something pretty profound.  The triptych above is comprised of three 2.5×3.5” plates exposed in a small Kodak box camera.  I discovered a great joy in making wet collodion images with the camera.  With no need to focus, worry about movements found on LF cameras, or tripods I amassed a pretty good size collection of small, intimate images with little effort.  Working with the smaller sized plates took a bit of pressure off trying to make each exposure count because of the amount of material used.  I felt free, loose, and very rapid for making collodion images.

Two days later I am still playing with my trees and box camera, the smell of collodion is in my clothes and table covered with trees.  Sometimes when the weight of life starts to strain the body it is important to remember the simple pleasures that can be found around us.  For me it has been a simple small box and the wind in the trees.  As for the trees, I don’t know how long they will be around but maybe by celebrating the ones I have, others will notice the ones in their world too.

Casualty

The dust has settled from the Irvine Contemporary group show Aspect: Ratio 2.  The exhibition focused on “small format” works by a group of the gallery represented artist.  My smallest work was 7×15 which in photographic language is in “small format” by any means.  Most of the other artist were painters and the like that normally work with much larger canvas and panel works so I found it nice that I could work full size and be included in the show.

The opening was well attended given the economic situation and I was pleased to find a nice level of interest in my recent direct positive photogram studies.  I am happy to report that the two works I had in the show both sold within about a week and a half.  This was a nice surprise given the company in which was work hung.

The image above, which is a continuous composition four plate piece which was made for the Ratio 2 show but was not shown.  Unfortunately is was damaged on the way to my local framer.  In the rush to get everything done and meet shipping time-lines the plates were forced out before they were totally ready.  Needless to say I was upset by the turn of events but could only look to myself for the true cause.  At least I had documented the plates.

So if you happen to be still following this slow blog, here is a reward for you.  There will be a new show of my work at Irvine Contemporary sometime in the near future.  Details are not totally settled but as soon as they are I will post them here.

New Images

The past week I have been living in the darkroom working up new images for the group show Aspect: Ratio2 at Irvine Contemorary in Washington DC opening January 24.  If you would like details so you can attend (which I hope you do), please click here.

The image above is a test plate and will not be at Irvine, but another plate measuring 3.5″ high x 24″ long featuring the hummingbird will be and it is a must see.  The creating of this new work has been very stressful because of technical issues.  The time allowed for preparation was very short and although I typically work best under pressure, the back to back issues with things like bad developer, late arrival of chemical resupply, and a major disaster with the final varnishing has really sapped my energy.  There is still work to be done, but when all is finished and the work is hanging the effort, tears, and sleepless nights will be worth it.

See you in DC!