Shifting Priorities & Making Albumen

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. images!

World Wet Plate Day Book 2009

I'm most happy doing meaningful work. It's satisfying and rewarding for me. I've never understood how people can go to jobs they hate everyday. I know that a lot of people do that. It's both sad and wrong.

If there's anything I know, it's that I know we should do what are heart tells us to do. We should follow our passion. And we should pursue happiness and find fulfillment in our lives. Contrary to popular belief, those things have little or nothing to do with money and fame. We shouldn't settle for mediocrity or fall victim to fear or the illusion of job security.

I've been multi-tasking for the last couple of months, maybe longer. I've been living and breathing my DVD for a couple of years, but I've also been weaving other, smaller projects into my schedule. One of them is the World Wet Plate Day book.

I've had the pleasure (and I say that with sincerity and honesty) to edit and prep almost 80 Collodion images shot on May 2, 2009 from all over the world. It's very exciting! It's going to be a wonderful publication for several reasons. First, all of the proceeds are going for a great cause and it's the very first one of it's kind (every year we'll publish one). It should be ready in a couple of weeks! Please consider buying a copy.

This is a mockup of the cover (all of the way open - nothing on the spine) - it's an 8.5" x 8.5" full color, perfect bound book - almost 100 pages.

The World Wet Plate Collodion Day Book 2009

Chemical Pictures - It's Finished!

Well, I didn't provide salvation for mankind, but I did finish my book, DVD, and web site.

After an inordinate amount of time, money and obstacles, the Chemical Pictures book, DVD and web site is ready for prime time (opening next week - July 20 - Summer's 17th birthday).

I'm elated, but at the same time, relieved. This has been a trying task, to say the least. While I understand that it's not perfect, I am very happy with it. If I had a couple of lifetime's and all of the resources I needed at my disposal, I could probably do a better job, but this will be fine for now. I think the users will be happy with it, too.

I'm most excited to hear what people think. About half of the content is malleable - at least the web site portion - so if users have suggestions for making it better, I'm going to listen. It's dynamic, too. I will do monthly video podcasts on a wide variety of Collodion topics. The technical forum board (yes, another one) will be active as well - but without the "noise" you get on public boards.

My biggest hope is that the students of my system will understand what I've put together here and maximize the opportunity to have access to a live, dynamic learning system. I hope that they will see the value of spending time with each video, each chapter in the book and ultimately really grasp the process and moreover, enjoy it.

The web site opens on Monday, July 20, 2009 and the book and DVD begins shipping the first week in August.

Preserving The Chemical Photography Era: The Getty

I was pleasantly surprised today when I picked up our mail. The Getty Conservation Institute gave me a nice certificate and letter for my contributions to the project, "Preserving the Chemical Photography Era."The Getty Cert and Thank You

I was happy to participate. I'm going to try to submit some more photographs over the next few months; the Collodion Negative, Albumen print, Salt print, and Ferrotype. I can geek out a little bit doing this stuff and make some nice images for the Getty to keep forever.

Nitrocellulose & The Dumbest Generation

I'm half artist and half geek. I’m interested in how things work. I seem to live in the "geek world" when I'm gearing up to write, teach or do some kind of experiment with Collodion, or Collodion related things.

Having a certain amount of knowledge about a topic or an area of interest helps you to achieve your goals and gives you more opportunity for growth. I don’t believe that every artist needs to understand their materials like a research scientist, but I wouldn’t discourage if they were so inclined.

Wet Plate Collodion photography opens the "geek door" wide open for me. Most people working in photography today don’t even understand the basics of how a photograph is made (I’m not talking pixelography here, I’m talking about light energy and silver). Again, I’m not saying that you need to understand how electricity works to turn on a light, but you would have a greater appreciation for it if you did. This applies to photography as well. Knowledge and connections – those are important to me. If you look at the history of photography, or the history of art for that matter, you’ll find that both artistic movements and technical advances were made because of profound understanding (knowledge) and connections.

So yes, I’ve been "geeking out". This is how nitrocellulose is made (Collodion).

 

I was listening to an interview with Mark Bauerlein this morning on the radio. He wrote, "The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30)". If the statistics he used are true, we (people in our 40s) have a lot to be worried about when we get old.

It’s an irony so commonplace it's become almost trite: despite the information superhighway, despite a world of knowledge at their fingertips, the younger generation today is less informed, less literate, and more self-absorbed than any that has preceded it. But why? According to the author, an English professor at Emory University, there are plenty of reasons. The immediacy and intimacy of social-networking sites have focused young people’s Internet use on themselves and their friends. The material they’re studying in school (such as the Civil War or The Great Gatsby) seems boring because it isn’t happening right this second and isn’t about them. They’re using the Internet not as a learning tool but as a communications tool: instant messaging, e-mail, chat, blogs. And the language of Internet communication, with its peculiar spelling, grammar, and punctuation, actually encourages illiteracy by making it socially acceptable. It wouldn’t be going too far to call this book the Why Johnny Can’t Read for the digital age. Some will disagree vehemently; others will nod sagely, muttering that they knew it all along. From David Pitt (Booklist).

Part of the conversation this morning was about this generation (12-25 year-olds) reading and writing more than any other generation. However, only 23% of high school graduates are proficient readers! They also talked about communication. This generation communicates more than any other, too. Emails, Tweets, Texts, Facebook, My Space, etc. etc. However, they communicate about NOTHING! They drone on about what they had for breakfast and what when they went to bed, etc. meaningless to everyone except them. The explanation he had for this was very interesting and explained a lot about the “social network movement” and our mental health. And before you email me about my Facebook or Twitter account, I want to say that I’m making a concerted effort to stay away from them as much as possible. Eventually, I would like to delete my accounts – however, it’s a process, not an event.

Bauerlein mentioned two movies, too; Flunked and Idiocracy.

One more note; I had an interview Friday night (via phone) with an organization in NYC that operates private schools for underserved communities. They’re opening a high school in Harlem next year and may be looking for a fulltime art teacher – photography, digital media, video, etc. So maybe when I return to America, (sometime next year or the first of 2011) I’ll pursue something that will allow me to do my part in helping this generation live up to their potential.

Today is Yom HaShoah

Yom HaShoah is a day of remembrance for the six million Jewish people who died in the Holocaust, and a range of events take place. In Israel, it is a national memorial day. On the evening beforehand, there is a state ceremony at the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes Authority, Yad Vashem. At 10am on the day of Yom HaShoah, air-raid sirens are sounded and people stop what they are doing to think of and pay respect to those who died. Places of public entertainment are closed and flags on public buildings are flown at half mast.

Jews who were classified as "not fit to work" waiting in a grove outside Crematorium IV before they were to be gassed.

Germany issues arrest warrant for Sobibor's 'Ivan the Terrible'

German authorities issued an arrest warrant on Wednesday for John Demjanjuk, 88, the alleged Nazi war criminal ‘Ivan the Terrible’ suspected of killing tens of thousands of Jews in a World War II death camp.

"The accused is currently still in the United States," a court official said in a statement. "As soon as he arrives in Germany he will be questioned and tried."

 

Ivan the Terrible

A spokesman for the Justice Ministry told The Local, “We are looking at how this arrest warrant can be carried out. As to how, or when, I cannot say.”

If the US authorities do not expel Demjanjuk, a formal extradition request will be made.

Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk, now living in the United States, is thought to have assisted in the deaths of at least 29,000 Jews during his time in a Nazi concentration camp in Sobibor.

Demjanjuk, one of the world’s most wanted Nazi war criminals, emigrated to the US in 1950 but was extradited to Israel in 1986 after being accused of being the infamous ‘Ivan the Terrible.’

Sentenced to death in 1988 in Israel, he was released in August 1993 when Israeli judges dropped the case against him after statements by former guards collected by the KGB suggested another man was the infamous ‘Ivan the Terrible’.

Demjanjuk then returned to the city of Cleveland in the US state of Ohio where he has been living under house arrest conditions.

Six years later, the case against him was revived as evidence emerged that he had worked for the Nazis as a guard at three other death camps. He is still on a Simon Wiesenthal Centre list of the most wanted Nazi war criminals still alive.

Story from thelocal.de

Chemical Pictures - The Cover

Chemical Pictures - The Wet Plate Collodion Photography BookI'm very happy! After many iterations, the cover of my new book and DVD is finished. Sometimes, I think over-thinking can be as bad as not thinking at all. I may have over-thought the cover, at least on the first few iterations. Remember, text out of context is a pretext. I had some "pretext-ing" going on.

I'm very happy with the results of this cover (click on it to see it bigger) and of the book and DVD. It's been a project I've been working on for years. I published one other book on the process in 2006. That was mostly for my graduate work and I didn't feel like I had adequate time to include everything that I wanted to. This work includes everything you've always wanted to know about making positive Wet Plate Collodion images and even some things that you don't want to know about. I'm very proud of this piece. It's based not only on my own personal experience working in the process for a few years, but on primary literature. Over the last two years, I read and studied every 19th and 20th century manual or book on the process I could find. I was amazed and enlightened at what I found. Not only is there everything in the old manuals that you need to learn the process (technical, formulae, etc), each photographer had their own interpretation and ideas on what worked the best. Not unlike today - there were several people who called themselves "masters" of the process. However, a lot of them had glaring flaws in their techniques and methodologies - the recipes and techniques conflicted a lot. I found it very interesting and entertaining, to say the least.

A lot of people deserve credit for this book and DVD. I've asked people all over the world to be involved in it - contributing everything from a piece on artificial lighting to collaborating on this cover - it's been a great experience and I want to thank everyone that's helped me - I'm truly thankful (and Summer will thank when she's paying her tuition, too.)

The next step: I have to make some changes (after the second editing process) and wrap up the online content (.flv files) and then wait for the printer to make my books and DVDs! Oh happy day!