"Portraits From Madison Avenue"
© 2003 Quinn Jacobson


When I was a young boy, in the early 1970s, I traveled with my father to a low-income apartment complex he owned on Madison Avenue in Ogden, Utah. The people I met there lived on the fringes of society. They fascinated me then and have deeply affected me to this day.

As a fine artist, I use photography to explore my memories of the people I met on Madison Avenue and the questions I have about marginalized society. A renowned German photographer named August Sander called them, "The Last People," or "Die letzten Menschen." They make me ask questions about identity, difference, memory and history.

I use an old, forgotten photographic process called wet plate Collodion. The photographs are made on glass and metal plates. It was invented in 1851. It's a process that was discarded in the 1880s when dry plates were invented. The process is both difficult and somewhat dangerous to do. Each image is a handmade artifact and the process takes a lifetime to master.

Wet plate is the perfect syntax for my work. I use it as a metaphor as it relates to abandonment. The process was abandoned and forgotten, just as most marginalized people are by the mainstream. I also embrace it for its imperfections; echoing our human imperfections.

Collodion's unique esthetic gives a half-remembered dream quality evoking the feeling of memory. It's hauntingly beautiful and reveals deep, poignant qualities about the people I photograph. It also allows me to interact with the sitter in ways traditional photography doesn't. Because of the commitment (time, complexity and stubbornness) of the process, I feel that the sitter co-creates the image with me. That process is very important to me. In the end, it's the co-creation that is the art. I consider the image evidence or residue of that interaction.

(view the photographs)