Summer Sings At Graduation 2009 & Mannheim Idol

Summer sang the German National Anthem and the American National Anthem at the 2009 Mannheim High School graduation ceremony yesterday at Congressforum in Frankenthal, Germany. She has an amazing voice and to hear the anthem is quite moving. No (Grandmas and Grandpas) Summer didn’t graduate yesterday, she graduates 2010!

It was a hectic day. She had to be in Heidelberg at 0745 to take her SAT. That went until 1230 and then we had to drive to Frankenthal (~40km) to get to the graduation ceremony on time. Summer and I were suppose to be there at 1330 – we made it. They asked me to photograph the graduation ceremony, too. It was a very nice ceremony in a very nice facility.

After that, we ended up going out for a bite to eat and in a weird series of events, Summer got picked up for the Mannheim Idol competition. It’s the post (MWR) sponsoring it, but should be fun to watch her crush the competition! I’ll be sure to shoot some video and post it.

 
Summer singing the anthem – I think it’s cool how there is a couple second delay on the big screen.

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.

Collodion Workshop: Budapest, Hungary

My head spins a little bit when I think about how to tell the stories and describe the adventures we go on with words and a few still images. It’s a lot like trying to explain how to tie your shoelaces over the phone – impossible, but I’ll try.

Budapest workshop students.

We arrived in Budapest, Hungary Friday afternoon. It was an 8.5 hour drive. It was problem free and beautiful. We drove in four countries in one day; Germany, Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary – 1000 kilometers – averaging 140 kmph – 160 kmph.

 

In the Budapest Photo House- skylight studio and all!

I have two friends from Budapest named Zoltan. Zoltan F. and Zoltan K. Zoltan F. lives in Jerusalem. And Zoltan K. lives in Budapest and invited me to do a Wet Plate Collodion workshop there.

Zoltan K. has a major exhibition coming up in September and wanted to spend a couple of days working in the process both as a refresher (he attended the workshop in Vienna last year) and to see what it would be like working in his studio with natural and artificial light.

Budapest is split into two very distinct areas; Buda, the “suburban”, mountainous side and Pest, the flat, urban side. The Danube splits the city. It’s a wonderful city. It’s beautiful, interesting and full of diversity. It reminded me of a blend of Paris and Barcelona. The people are very nice and the city is full of art, culture, and history.

One of the most interesting sites we visited was The Great Synagogue on Dohány Street. It’s the second largest synagogue in the world. We also had a wonderful meal at Rosenstein’s Restaurant, an appropriate transition following the synagogue visit.

The Great Synagogue - it lives up to its name - amazing! I have to admit that I was moved by the beauty and size of the synagogue. It still bothers me that they have to have the police guarding synagogues and anything Jewish here. In Berlin, I saw the same thing – they are huge targets for the nut-jobs of the world.

I bought two really cool black velvet kippahs. One has, “The Great Dohany Street Synagogue – Budapest, Hungary” on the inside. I collect kippahs. I have them from Worms, Germany, Prague, Czech Republic, and some other places, and now Budapest. I wanted to be able to collect something from wherever I go that has significant Jewish history; kippahs seem to work for me that way. We picked up some Klezmer music, too. Summer bought a really cool book called, “Beyond the Nose.” All in all, it was a great experience seeing Europe’s largest synagogue and collecting a few items to remember it by.

We visited the Hungarian House of Photography - Manó Mai House, too. The 19th century skylight studio was beautiful. It would be wonderful to setup and make portraits in that space for a day – or even a few hours! The images would be mind-twisting, for sure. It’s beautiful light!

The workshop was successful, too. There were four people in attendance; Zoltan (the host), Walter (from Oslo, Norway), Szabina, and Zolt. Zolt and Szabina are Hungarian and work with Zoltan.

The Great Synagogue - Budapest, Hungary Zoltan has a beautiful studio nestled at the top of a hill on the Buda side of the city. It’s both spacious and high-end. He’s put a lot of time, effort and money into it, for sure. Budapest this time of year is full of UV light – Collodion loves it there! His studio has a lot of windows, too. You can make plates by natural UV or by artificial lights. He had a 3000 Kelvin mono-light we blasted through a scrim – it was perfect. Exposures were between 4 and 8 seconds.

Zoltan has a large exhibition coming up and wants to make photographs of Hungarian Ballerinas in Wet Plate Collodion. I saw the space of his show – it’s mind-blowing huge! It’s an enormous (beyond enormous) atrium and three levels of galleries. It’s really beautiful right in the middle of the city. He made some really nice “test” or example plates during the workshop of one of Budapest’s top ballerinas. He’s going to do very well with the craft and the concept of Wet Plate Collodion.

Walter is from Oslo, Norway. He was going to go to the United States for a workshop, but ended up attending mine. I’m glad he did. He had some great stories and has a real passion for photography. He made a couple of really beautiful images. One of them was a Whole Plate Alumitype of Summer and it looked like it was made by someone who had several years experience in the process. I was impressed.

It was nice to sit and have a beer or two and dinner with him after a long day of Collodion work, too. He stayed in the same hotel as us. There have been a lot of Norwegians in my workshops – this is a good thing. They seem to bring a sense of passion and love for the craft. And they always have great stories about Norway. We hope to make it to Scandinavia in September, our fingers crossed! I just hope we can afford it, it sounds very expensive there.

Walter (left from Oslo) and Zoltan, showing off their "black paws" from the Collodion workshop.Szabina and Zolt both did an outstanding job with the process. They both made wonderful images and seem to really like the process. Szabina is very photogenic. Summer asked her to sit for her. The result was a beautiful little 4x5 Alumitype of Szabina looking like a 1940s American film actress – gorgeous! The portrait of Zolt rocks, too! I really like the backwards, “Lucky’s Auto Parts” on his t-shirt. The whole workshop was a lot of fun! In the end, it was about passionate people working in a process and history that mirrors that passion so well. We had a little (private) exhibition at the end of the workshop on Sunday – wow, the plates all together looked so sweet! It was hard to believe all of that work was created in a couple of days by a handful of people. It made me proud and happy.

Szabina, 1940s Style by Summer Jacobson Europeans, for the most part, seem more intense and more engaged with learning the process than Americans (my apologies to my American brothers and sisters, just trying to be honest). In reality, I’ve taught a lot more Europeans than Americans, so maybe I’ve forgotten what Americans are like in a Wet Plate Collodion workshop. It’s been a while since I’ve been engaged with Americans. Europe has been my classroom for Wet Plate Collodion and I’m honored to have had the opportunity to teach so many here. I hope I can do that all the way to the end (2011?). I also hope that everyone here that I teach will teach 10 more and that they will teach 10 more and so on and so forth. That’s my goal. Unlike so many teaching workshops, I want to give people the tools and knowledge to pass it on to others and support them to do that.

 

My dream, a Skylight Studio! 

Szabina - Budapest, Hungary
Waler's plate of Summer. 
Zoltan and Zolt working on a plate. 
And once again, The Great Synagogue!
Summer assisting Walter with varnishing.
Zoltan's plate of one of Budapet's top ballerina dancers.
Zoltan's #2 - great images!

Zoltan's image of Zolt. 
Walter's image of Zoltan exposed through the glass (plate in camera backwards).
The Stars of David are amazing - all over the Synagogue
Makeup!
I couldn't resist!

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.

Collodion Portraits

This is one of those posts where I should be elated, but I'm not (so much).

I prepared all week to make some images for the Getty Conservation Institute today. The Getty invited me (and others) to be part of their project called, "Preserving the Chemical Photography Era". I got the invite months ago, but between my book and DVD, workshops, Wet Plate Day, and life, I haven't had the chance to do the work. However, I almost succeeded today.

One of my many weaknesses is perfectionism. Not on everything, and certainly not in every situation. But making plates for the Getty Institute tends to bring the proclivity for "perfection" out.

The irony is, I'm working in Wet Plate Collodion photography, "perfection" doesn't exist. In fact, I've written many times about how I love the imperfection of the process - how do I reconcile that? The project isn't even about what I'm trippin' on - it's really kind of a "geek" project. A cool geek project, I might add.

They are analyzing different photographic (chemical) techniques and documenting how the image was produced. It's for future generations to identify images they have no clue about. When they discover the 5000 glass plates that I will have stored in my attic, they'll know what they are looking at and how they were made. Cool stuff.

My dilemma is a personal one; I don't feel that these images are worthy of the Getty. Primarily because I scratched the surface on #2 and it looks like shit now. I was so pissed, I almost had an anxiety attack, I'm serious. I flipped out. It was THE perfect image. I wanted to brush a mark off of the top of the glass and my finger left a huge mark on the plate, I was sick and wanted to scream. It took me two hours to get the image and it was gone in a fraction of a second. Even through I ruined #2, I think I still may put it in my book. What do you think, would you? I like #1, I distressed (forgive me) it on purpose, I really like his expression and "presence" in it. The piece of Collodion gone from the bottom right side doesn't bother me at all on that one. 

Anyway, I'm not sending them to the Getty, but wanted to share them with you. I have to say, they had the potential to be some of the best images I've ever made. Maybe next week.

#1 Whole Plate Black Glass Ambrotyoe (6.5"x8.5") May 9, 2009 - Viernheim, Germany
#2 Whole Plate Ambrotype (6.5"x8.5") May 9, 2009 - Viernheim, Germany Later broken and then purchased in Paris.

Puppet Shows & German Neighbors

The world is a strange place and so much of it is relative. In other words, we seek truth, we want truth, and sometimes we even believe we have truth, but most of the time it’s not truth at all, only our interpretation of truth. (Please keep in mind when I say “truth” I’m referring to "reality" – mostly).

I have a funny and relevant story to tell you now that I’ve laid that ground work. I’m writing it down, because I want to refer to it when I see something and assume that I know what it is without inquiring or doing research about it. It will force me to ask questions and do the research before I make up my mind as to what it is I’m seeing, reading or listening to, I hope.

In Germany, you’re always being watched. At least to some degree. If you have 80 year-old German neighbors, like we do, most likely, everything you do that can be observed, will be observed. I have my own opinions on why this is, but it would defeat the point I’m trying to make and would take much longer to write about than I have time for (I have to be in a certain mood and a certain frame of mind to "blog" – I just can’t "turn it on" whenever I want).

Anyway, our neighbors, the Knopps (Ka-Nops) let our landlord know that they were very upset about us putting some plastic in the wrong recycle bin. We have four, yes four, recycle bins: paper, Gelbe (yellow sack, for plastic, wrappers, etc), Bio (for coffee grounds, food waste, etc.), and Abfalle (yard waste, leaves, grass clippings, tree limbs, etc.).

The Knopps inspect what’s in the bins and keep a tight reign on recycling waste. Sometimes, we make mistakes, but not often. On a side note, about a month ago, not far from here, a German man beat his neighbors to death for putting the yard waste in the wrong bin – true story. The Knopps also told our landlords that we need to spend more time on our yard and sweeping the street on Saturday morning (German ritual – to stave off chaos).

Now you have a good sense of what our neighbors are like (which is typical here) let me tell you the rest of the story. The Knopps had one last thing to tell our landlords about us. Most every weekend, you can find me, and a lot of times Summer, making photographs (Wet Plate Collodion) on our winter garden. The Knopps can see what we do – so I would imagine they’ve watched us make a lot of photographs. But going back to my original point, what the Knopps watch is not two artist’s working in their studio making photographs, they see the American neighbors putting on puppet shows, yes, I said puppet shows. They mean this in a derogatory way, too. Does that blow your mind? I can understand why they “see” that. The camera is always facing the opposite way from their view and every time someone goes under the dark-cloth it must look like a performance as the sitter is looking on and sometimes holding props or wearing some kind of costume. I can’t imagine what the dark-box represents – maybe that’s where we make the puppets? Can you imagine what they’re thinking as they are watching the puppet show from the crack in their window blind? Wow! I was blown away and literally started laughing when I heard this and it’s been on my mind since. I now refer to making Wet Plate Collodion photographs, as a puppet show - “Hey Summer, do you want to do a puppet show today?” 

Happy Wet Plate Day - I Hope Your Hands Are Black!

It's a beautiful day today and we made the most of it. Today is Worldwide Wet Plate Collodion Day 2009! We're honored and pleased to be a part of it.

Summer and I made plates most of the day and was lucky enough to have a couple of sitters for some portraits. We had a lot of fun. Summer knocked it out of the park with her Converse shot. She'll have to tell you what it's about - consumerism and being a teenager, I think.

As a group (Collodionistas), we decided to set a day aside to honor the man who invented the process - Frederick Scott Archer. We also want to honor the process itself - however ones sees fit to do that (usually by making some photographs). Unfortunately, today is Archer's death date. He died 157 years ago! We don't know his birth date, if we find out, we may change the date we do this on.

It's easy to forget what role photography has played in our lives and in history. Frederick Scott Archer played a significant part in making photography what it is today. We tend to take it for granted - pour a few plates and that might make you think twice - that's not a bad thing, either (ether).

If we really wanted to honor Archer, we would all be making 8x10 negatives and printing Albumen - maybe next year!

Here's some of what we did today:

 

"Jürgen, der Klempner" - Whole Plate Alumitype - by Quinn 
 

"Schweinehaxen" - Whole Plate Alumitype - by Quinn 
 

"Schweinehaxen" - burnished & cropped - Whole Plate Black Glass Ambrotype - by Quinn (I love the texture of the glass showing through)  
 

"Converse From Berlin" - 5x4 Alumitype - by Summer 
 

Wet Plate Collodion Day 2009, Montmartre, & Budapest

"Anna In Austria" - Workshop 2009

There are a lot of times when I feel confused and frustrated about how to manage or organize events and opportunities in my life. Sometimes, I feel like I’m running out of time and other times, I feel like I haven’t maximized the opportunities I’ve been given. It’s always a lesson about being present to your experiences and your life. We’ve been living a hundred lifetimes over the last three years here. It’s been the most rewarding and enlightening time of my life.

If I was a politician and I could pass one bill, it would be called, “HB 2009 The Americans Abroad Act”. It would state that every American must live abroad for at least one year. They would be given a small stipend but they must also contribute to the community that they live in and earn money. The bare essentials would be provided, nothing more. And they must also document their experiences (journals, blogs, photography, art, etc). I would appropriate some of the stimulus package money to make this happen. It would be one the best investments America could make in all aspects of the word investment – financial, moral, spiritual, and cultural, etc. This would change the world, I would guarantee it.

I have some really cool things happening that I wanted to share with you. First, this Saturday, May 2, 2009, is the Worldwide Wet Plate Collodion Day. People from all over the world will be making plates Saturday to honor F.S. Archer, the inventor, and to celebrate the process itself. Over the next few weeks, I’ll gather the images and publish a catalog of the work, and the event, that people can purchase. The idea is to raise money to put a headstone on Archer’s grave.

On Sunday, we’ll be back in Frankfurt (Höchst), weather permitting, making portraits and showing work. The Montmartre Am Main event is always a good time.

I just received word that I’ll be going to Budapest, Hungary at the end of May to do a Wet Plate Collodion workshop. This will be a great trip. We’re driving so it will be a 9 hour trip each way (1000 km each way). We’ll go through Germany, Austria, Slovakia, and then into Hungary. Which is better, Buda or Pest? I hear Buda is mountainous and Pest is urban. With 2 million people there, it’s a substantial city. We'll be spending the Hungarian Fornit - 100 HUF is .45 cents USD (today).

And finally, we’ll be traveling to Paris, France in June. There is a huge photo fair and art fair in Bièvres, just outside of Paris (15 minutes). Jeanne and I went once in 2007, it was a lot of fun. We met some great people. This time, we’ll be in good and familiar company – our friends and colleagues from all over Europe are converging at the fair. It’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m trying to arrange for a space next to the French Alt Photo people to setup my dark-box and chemistry laboratory. I want to do some demonstrations and make some portraits. You couldn’t ask for a better audience.