An Ambrotype Plugin for Photoshop

First of all, Happy New Year (2009)! I hope all of your dreams, goals and aspirations come to pass. Most of all, I wish you peace. It feels like we're going to need a lot of it in 2009.

Collodion and the Making of Wet-Plate Negatives I've been reading Geoffrey Batchen's book, "Each Wild Idea". I was very moved by the idea of protophotographers and the theories he proposes about the invention of photography and the identity of photography. This got me thinking (again) about wet plate and how we see it today, its past and even its future. What it all means, and why we're even interested in it. It's an ongoing thing with me, I'm still trying to get my head around it and formulate some thoughts about it - forgive me if this is redundant.

I have about ten books (technical) about the Wet Plate Collodion process. The majority of them are from the 19th century. I have one from the Eastman Kodak Company, published in 1935 called, "Collodion and the Making of Wet-Plate Negatives". It's really good, loaded with great information. I've found bits and pieces about the process here and there in various other 20th century books, like "Light and Film". That's where I found Joel Snyder a couple of years ago and his wet-plate revival work that no one has ever talked about. He responded to my email and said this:
 
Dear Quinn,

Thanks for your note.

I produced a permanent exhibition for the Department of the History of Photography of the Smithsonian Institution in 1967. I was in my mid-20s. The exhibit contained 16 examples of important photographic processes, including three forms of wet collodion. In 1976, Doug Munson and I co-founded the Chicago Albumen Works. CAW is now doing all sorts of work preserving, archiving, and replicating negatives for major institutions in the US and Europe. It has been printing in albumen, salt paper, platinum, and POP since 1976. CAW has had printing commissions from MoMA (we printed about 300 Atget negatives on albumen paper for its 4 Atget exhibits 1979-1983), the Met (NYC), etc.

I've been a historian of art at the University of Chicago since 1977. I've no idea why others have received the credit for being first to use use the collodion process in recent times, but it isn't something that concerns me. Doug and I taught ourselves to work with collodion. I was very lucky to meet John Ryan, a retired photoengraver (for R.R. Donnelley, a major printer in the US) who had used collodion for plate-making until the late 1950s. He gave me bottles of Eastman Kodak collodion and Eastman chemicals for making "hard-working" (straight iodides) and "soft working" (iodides, chlorides and bromides) collodion. Most people don't know that Eastman produced collodion for the photomechanical trade. Ryan gave me a few useful tricks for aging collodion rapidly, and for varying the acidity of silver baths in order to get variations in the properties of the sensitized collodion. I still have the bottles, tightly sealed and unused.

Best,
Joel Snyder, Professor
Department of Art History
University of Chicago

Joel Snyder's project in the book, "Light and Film".

Which brings me to my point; A long time ago, I realized that everything that we know about the wet plate collodion process today, we know because of the 19th and 20th century literature. Even the guys working in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, used that literature. I haven't found one thing, not a thing, that I can't show you in the old manuals that's being used today - recipes, techniques, vocabulary, methodologies, etc. There's absolutely nothing new! Every one of us teaching wet plate today, is simply regurgitating what all of the photographers in the 19th century knew. We're not inventing anything new, nor are we offering anything that can't be found, for free, in the old manuals.

 "Flowing the plate with Collodion"Before you send me emails telling me I'm wrong, I know that they didn't have hair dyers, Rapid Fix, and suction cups back (or did they?) then, so I want to be clear; I mean there's nothing new in the core of the process. Yes, we have some new fancy gadgets to make things a little bit easier today, but there's nothing fundamentally different in the process at all.

That's a very cool thing to think about. Something so good, and so desirable, and yet we can't improve on it after 158 years! We can't make it obsolete! Even my computer is replaced after a couple of years! I know what you're thinking, you're saying, "C'mon Quinn, dry plates, film and now digital have all replaced the wet plate process, so your theory is bunk!" I suppose you could say that. However, I'm talking about the drive to get the same "look and feel" - the same aesthetic, and maybe even the same experience (actually going through the process). It doesn't seem to have become outdated or undesirable. Or am I just looking at this from a tiny, delusional worldview? I suppose I could be writing about Atari Pong, or some other small, obscure niche group, couldn't I? After all, that's what this is.

With today's technology, why can't we, or why won't we, replicate the aesthetic of wet plate? There's a demand for it, no doubt about that. But is there enough demand to profit from it? There are all kinds of filters and effects in Adobe Photoshop - watercolor, canvas, crosshatch (my favorite), dry brush, film grain, fresco, neon glow, plastic wrap, and a lot more - why not one for wet plate? If there was an Ambrotype Plugin for Adobe Photoshop, would you stop using the process? Or are you after something more, something beyond Photoshop?

 

Videos, Graphics and My Hopes for The New Year

The videos series has been in the making for about three year (since 2005). With help from Summer and Jeanne, I've made major progress on my Collodion Workshop videos. I appreciate the email I get (almost daily) regarding the video classes. It motivates me to get them done. It's a huge undertaking and I'm glad there are people interested in them.

Over the last few months, I’ve kind of reinvented myself. I designed a new(er) logo and launched a new web site. I believe everything is in flux, always changing, and that’s how I tend to live. I’m always in need of something new, it keeps me going. Having said, that, I’ve posted a couple of ideas for my new logos. I really like these. The circle has always got me going - representing infinity, eternity, etc. And the simple black and white “Q” rocks. It’s clean, it’s easy on the eye and is completely me. Actually, the text around the logo is what’s new. I like this because it reminds me of a stamp. It’s tidy and circular. I would love to have a metal (embossing) stamp made of this - like a notary stamp. It would be cool to emboss photographs - paper ones, not glass plates.

Also, this "collodion video venture" forced me into buying another domain. It's a long technical story about servers. It's about IIS versus Linux and ASP versus PHP. The membership software needed to live on a Linux box, my studioQ.com domain lives on a Windows box. I ended up buying studioQ.info - I like it, it's very appropriate for what it will be used for. It was Jeanne's idea to go with .info - thanks Sweetie! Great idea!

Well, I'm glad the consumption holiday is over. Now all we have to do is to get through the gluttony holiday. Here in Germany, they light fireworks, and I mean HUGE, NOISY ones. I can't stand it. They have some strange rituals at midnight on New Year's as well too. The first year we were here, it freaked us out.

I hope everyone has great plans for the new year. 2009 is going to be one of personal work and introspection for me. Of course we'll do some traveling too. Right now, we're planning to spend some time in  Brussels, Belgium the first week of February and The Netherlands the last week of February. In April, we'll be back in Vienna, Austria and possibly Budapest, Hungary.

New Year's resolutions? No, I don't have any New Year's resolutions. The only one I might have is to not make any resolutions. However, here's what I hope for the new year:

1. Live my life to the fullest and to be present as much as possible.

2. Don't be a participant or a bystander in the evil in the world.

3. Take chances and don't be afraid to fail.

4. Be grateful for everything.

5. Make a difference in other people's lives.

6. Put other people before myself (as much as possible). 

Those are my hopes for the new year. Why six? Because my number is six.

 

These Collodion Videos Are Kicking My Ass

They really are. This is why I know I could never make movies. This is much, much bigger than I anticipated. One thing after another is going wrong. I think I get prepared and something I didn't think of happens. Today, it was the batteries dying in the wireless microphone system.

I shot all of the intros to every chemical yesterday, two hours of tape, and the battery was dead in the receiver in 90% of it! I didn't know until today when I went to capture the tape. I almost had a breakdown! And today, the battery died in the transmitter halfway through the video on making varnish! I can't get anything finished! Why is all of this happening? It's like bad joojoo is living in this project. It upsets me and makes me sad all at the same time.

It's too bad that I don't have access to a college or university. I could recruit three or four interns that would love to work on this project with me. It's a shame that no one here is interested. I could use the help!

Anyway, I'll do my best to move forward with this project and make it happen. However, I don't see it being completed at the first of the year (as I had originally intended). With any luck, I'll open the web site, send off the master DVD and the book for publication sometime in January. And hopefully, I'll look back on all of this and laugh.

I'm off to go buy some batteries!

God, The Holocaust & Aerosol Cheese: Things That Are Difficult To Understand

Cheese in a can - cheddar flavor! Who are you, and who am I? Isn't that what we're trying to figure out? It's frustrating when things like money and ego get in the way of our understanding and joy. How is it that we seem so confused about what's important? Is it fear? Does fear keep us from love, peace, and joy in our lives?

It’s difficult to comprehend most things in life, especially the big things. Things like God, the Holocaust, and aerosol cheese (okay, aerosol cheese isn't big, but it's difficult to understand). It’s difficult, because most of us never give enough thought to anything to even start to understand it, let alone make any effort to research it or read other’s thoughts on it. We seem apathetic and lazy. We, mostly Americans, seem obsessed with the superficial and the innocuous, things that won’t mean anything in six months, or a year from now. I don’t believe that we don’t care or that we’re lazy, I think it’s because we’re afraid. We’re scared. We’re afraid to know. We’re afraid of getting old. We’re afraid of getting fat. We’re afraid of going grey. We’re afraid that we’re not smart enough, good looking enough, thin enough, rich enough, strong enough, desirable enough, healthy enough, funny enough, never enough, enough, etc. etc. We’re afraid. And we do crazy things to hide and disguise that fear so we never have to face it.

Think about the pressure we feel to live up to other people’s expectations. Like the pressure to buy a big, beautiful house that we can’t afford or a nice, new car that we don’t really need. Things that we put a lot of “ourselves” into, at the very least, things that we anchor some portion of identity to. Think about what that means – saying that a big house or a new car is “me”, or that they represent “me”, is repulsive when you think about it. However, the need to say, “Look, I’m good enough, see!” is overwhelming and powerful.

How about the power of having money, that’s a big one. It’s sad, you could say you scrubbed toilets for a living but got paid $250,000 a year for it and people would be asking, “How do you qualify for that kind of job?” and, “Where can I apply?”.

We seem overly eager and very willing to sell out and prostitute ourselves for money. We’ll work at a job we hate for 20 or 30 years and be miserable every day, but we never really give our passions or our dreams a chance. Why is that? Do we still believe what our parents told us growing up? “You should be a doctor or lawyer; those professions earn a lot of money!” They said that because they were close enough to the “Great Depression” that they still carry all of that angst and anxiety and aren’t afraid to share it with us. Just because they never followed their dreams, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t follow ours.

I’m tired of being afraid. It’s back in the air now, credit crisis, bad economy, etc. We moved from the fear of terrorists to the fear of having no job. I’m tired of it. I want peace and joy back into my life and I want to follow my passions and dreams.

Pursue your passion, not your pension!

The Transports

Train tracks in DachauMy friend, Caron, gave me a great idea for my Kristallnacht project. She suggested that I make images of train tracks and stations that were instrumental in moving Jews to the concentration camps. "The Final Solution" could not have happened without the railways, without the trains making the mass transport possible. The Germans sent 30,000 Jewish men to Dachau and Sachsenhausen on Kristallnacht by way of trains.

The photo on the left is one I snapped at Dachau one year ago (December 2007). I remember thinking, "These are the rails that carried all of those people to their death". It was profoundly sad and visually striking to me.

This is a very insightful and interesting idea on many levels. It resonates with me simply for the fact of how much we us railroad metaphors and how they take on a whole new meaning here in Germany. For example, "derailed"or "derailing", "track wreck", "just the ticket", "off track", "one track mind", "railroaded", "fast track", "express", "letting off steam", "blowing your stack", "tunnel vision", "bells and whistles" and "end of the line". I see trains here in that kind of context.

The transports were usually cattle cars. At times, the floor of the car had a layer of quick lime which burned the feet of the human cargo. There was no water. There was no food. There was no toilet, no ventilation. Some boxcars had up to 150 people stuffed into them. It did not matter if it was summer, winter, boiling hot or freezing cold. And an average transport took about four and a half days. Sometimes the Germans did not have enough cars to make it worth their while to do a major shipment of Jews to the camps, so the victims were stuck in a switching yard - "standing room only" - for two and a half days. The longest transport, from Corfu, took 18 days. When the train got to the camps and the doors were opened, and everyone was dead.

Nazis Spread The Hate Around

I'm a lot more sensitive to these kinds of acts now. It's always been disgusting to me, but it's taken on a new level. It makes me want to become a full-time activist.

It's irrelevant who this kind of hate is directed toward. In the end, it all comes back on humanity. If there's anything to learn from the Holocaust (Shoah), (and for the record I don't think there is) it's that we're all responsible for these kinds of things. Indifference and ignorance being the greatest crimes. I ask myself everyday if I'm part of the problem, or part of the solution.

Destruction of a Muslim cemetery in Paris. PARIS — A Nazi swastika symbol is seen among desecrated tombs in the Muslim section of the Notre-Dame-de-Lorette military cemetery near Arras, northern France, Monday Dec. 8, 2008. Officials say that several hundred tombs of Muslim soldiers who fought in World War I, have been desecrated in northern France in an act the French president denounces as "repugnant racism". The desecration comes at the start of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. There is no translation for the letters which mark the tombstones.(AP Photo/Michel Spingler).

Vandals desecrated at least 500 tombs of Muslim soldiers in northern France on Monday _ an act President Nicolas Sarkozy denounced as "repugnant racism."

The desecration near the town of Arras appeared timed with the start of Eid al-Adha, the most important holiday in the Muslim calendar.

The administration for the Pas-de-Calais region said the damaged tombs were in the Muslim section of the Notre-Dame-de-Lorette cemetery, a well-groomed burial ground for World War I soldiers. Some had swastikas scrawled on the tombstone, others had lettering whose meaning was unclear.

There are 576 graves in the Muslim section of the cemetery, where more than 30,000 soldiers are buried.

Sarkozy, in a statement, said the "abject and revolting act" equates with "repugnant racism against France's Muslim community" and insults the memory of all World War I combatants.

Conscientious Objector

I've had enough. I'm sick of it. And I refuse to participate. I don't care what anyone thinks about me saying that either. Call me what you will for not participating in mass consumption, for any "holiday", but especially this one.

Drunk Santa! It's hard for me to see the value (i.e. showing love) in spending money that you don't have on gifts that people don't want. Or even worse, sending cards to people "because it's that time of year." I loathe that, I really do!

It's a scam to make super-consumers out of everyone. To rob us of our dignity and shame us with empty, meaningless stuff. We know better!

If people really cared for one another, we wouldn't be in (pick a mess, any mess) the mess we're in today. Period. And we want to indoctrinate our children with this? Come on! They're already facing a very uncertain future. Why do we want to burden them with this? And don't say it's fun and joyful, it's not, we all know that.

Where are the friendships, family love, and empathy in March or April or when people really need it? Where are the gifts given in conversation and in listening to one another about individual interests or ideas? Why can't we give those kinds of things throughout the year?

I would much rather have a meaningful conversation with someone than receive material "stuff" from them. I would prefer one minute of real conversation over a thousand hours of fake "weather conversation" and forced dinners with people I don't even really know. But we all do it, don't we? We know it's wrong and meaningless, but we do it anyway. Why? Why not be honest and real? What's so shameful or embarrassing about being who we are? I don't get it?

Think about all of the parents that don't really even know their (adult) children. Siblings that are clueless about one another (as in really knowing one another). I tried to communicate to my mother about who I am and what I believe is important in my life before she died. And I continue to talk to my father about it too. It's not easy.

Even here in Europe, the consumer craze in catching on. Germans love their Weinnacht Markts and hot Glühwein (puke). You can see the American influence to consume creeping in and taking over. How long will they last?

I was walking through Real the other day and saw a copy of Bild. It had some German guy on the front page talking about how Hitler was a nice guy. I bought it so I could read that article and saw this ad in it. The Santa drinking an Erdinger (which is good beer) reminded me of how I felt about this time of year. That's why I went on this rant.

Having said all of that, it doesn't mean that I don't love you and miss you, I do. That's why I said all of this, I want to show my love and appreciation in a different and new way. Do you want to join me?

Inspect Your Worst, I Mean Wurst

German "platform toilet" - inspect your WurstPlatform toilets. These are toilets that allow you to inspect your "Wurst" (Sausage) - translation: your shite. Germans are infatuated with them. I first saw them in Berlin. I thought, "Wow, this is weird, I'm shatting on a porcelain platform." It reminded me of seeing a pile of dog shite on the sidewalk, just completely out of place!

This is from Portnoy Stammtisch on the topic of "poo platforms". It was "World Toilet Day" on November 19. No kidding.

To most newcomers to this fine country, the contraption is an enigma. Who would want a shelf, just inches from your backside, that collects your business while allowing you to revel in your own stench? Not even a mercy flush is much help with this thing. And, to make matters worse, it's almost impossible to get rid of what you want to get rid of without the manual assistance of a toilet brush.

Germans, perhaps tired of having to defend this terrible device to perplexed outsiders, usually just shrug if you bring it up.

It wasn’t until I’d lived here for several years that I finally found one who I believed would give me a straight answer. In a newsroom of mixed nationalities, we were blessed with a German colleague of questionably fervent patriotism (let’s not use the adjective “brown” in this context, okay?) with an amazing knowledge and love of Teutonic culture. I would never have managed to squeeze out a question about the platform on my own but emboldened by my other English-tongued colleagues, I let it fly.

"It’s so you can inspect your poo. You can tell if you’re eating right," he told us in all seriousness. Rolf (name changed) was über-German – I've only ever met Dutch or Swiss who can speak with less irony. Actually, I’m being too kind. What he really said was: “It’s so you can inspect your Wurst.”