Greenwich Village (West) New York City

New York always fascinates me. The energy, the crowds; I have a "love-hate" relationship with it (mostly love). Every time I visit, I ask myself if I could live here. A lot of me says, “yes” and the rest rest of me says, “Not a chance.”

New York is "on” all of the time. It’s like an exasperating friend – the energy is palpable and exhausting. We were out until 3AM last night (Rocky Horror Picture Show). Coming back to the apartment on the train/subway, you could see the city that never sleeps in all of its glory. Do you want a Falafel at 3AM? A beer? A glass of wine? A movie? Do you want to see people dancing on the train? Playing music? What ever you want, you can get here at any time.

We’ve been hanging out with David, Caron and Issac the last few days here. It’s been a lot of fun. We’ve seen a lot; Sally Mann show, WTC chaos, Times Square, Katz’s Deli, etc. etc. My favorite has been this little neighborhood in the West Village. We have an apartment here and the flavor of the place is very nice. There’s this coffee house called “Jack’s Coffee” just 50 meters from our apartment – I love it. These are the things that interest me the most.

Jean and Quinn in Jack’s Coffee drinking Honey Macchiatos.  
Shade grown puppies!  

Jack's Coffee Shop

Honey Machiatto

Quinn and Caron - “Sally Mann, Sally Mann!”! 
 

Self Portrait: Collodion & DNA

I have a couple of really important goals that I want to accomplish in the next few months. One of them is to make work for my project, exhibition and book.

I thought I would get creative with my time and my commitments. We are leaving Thursday for ten days and wanted to post the October Video Podcast on Chemical Pictures before we left. I also had an image in mind that I've wanted to make for a few weeks. I thought, why not make a few plates, create an image for my project and cover the podcast, too? So that's what I did today.

These image are about numbers, labeling, skulls & sockets, history, evilness, genetics and otherness. I distressed plate #3 a little bit. I varnished it shortly after making this copy and it cleaned up quite a bit - I was a little disappointed about that but I still like the image. I look so different in each image, it trips me out a wee bit.

It took four plates to get two that I really like.

"Self Portrait #3 - Jewish DNA" - 8"x10" Alumitype - Viernheim, Germany 2009 
Self Portrait #1 With Y-DNA Sequence Backwards (written by hand)

Göteborg, Sweden Wet Plate Collodion Workshop

Thanks to everyone that attended the workshop: Aron, Manuel and Sara, Bosse and Alfia, and Anna and Markus. And a big thank you to Henning (www.timeunit.se). His kind heart and wonderful space made it all happen - he organized and provided space and shared his expertise on the process with the students.

I'll post more photos and tell you a story about these images later. I'm really tired and need to rest for a couple of days!

"Nordic Man" - 8.5" x 6.5" (Whole Plate) Black Glass Ambrotype September 6, 2009 Gotheburg, Sweden 
"Roger - From the Streets of Göteborg, Sweden" 4" x 5" Alumitype September 6, 2009

Göteborg, Sweden

Sweden is beautiful, laid back and the people are very friendly. It’s the land of the Goths – it seems progressive and liberal. Being next to the sea is a great feeling, too. We set up the studio today and are ready for a really great weekend of Wet Plate Collodion!

Quinn showing off 100 Kronor on the top of the ship this morning (4 September) floating into Göteborg, Sweden (he looks a little bit Goth, yes?). We sailed by Denmark in the night and arrived in Sweden at 9AM this morning. A 13 1/2 hour journey – a big beautiful ship and a wonderful night feeling the sea below us. 
Saling into to Göteborg and the sun coming through at about 0800 this morning.

September Video Podcast: Exposure

For all of you Chemical Pictures members, I just uploaded the September Video Podcast. It's all about exposure: Over, Under and Spot On. I show some working examples using my Cigar Box Guitar, and yes, I play a little bit, too - I hope you enjoy it.

 

Exposure: Making A Good Image

Exhibition In Paris, France

The website of Centre Iris Gallery for photographyI’ve had three photographic dreams my life. The first, to have a photographic exhibition of my work in Paris, France. The second, to have a book of my photographs published (a very nice 12” x 12” tri-tone, spot varnished images). And the third, to own and operate a (historical) photography school - the first three processes - Daguerreotypes, Calotypes and Wet Plate Collodion.

I’m happy to say that the first dream has come true! I’ve been invited to do a show in the center of Paris at a gallery called, “Centre Iris Pour La Photographie”. This is an incredible high for me. Paris is the birthplace of photography and the French, for the most part, really love and appreciate the art.

My exhibition will run from 9 March to 19 June, 2010. I will be doing a live demonstration of the process; I call them “performative lectures”, and a full-blown, two-day workshop during the exhibition, too.

This will be my second solo exhibition with my Wet Plate Collodion work. The show will consist of 50 – 60 pieces; Ambrotypes, Tintypes, Alumitypes, and Albumen prints (singles, diptychs, and triptychs). I’m going to exhibit both the, “Portraits from Madison Avenue” work and the, “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” work.

Wish me luck! I hope you can make the opening!

Whole Plate Collodion Negatives

Whole Plate Wet Collodion Negative - August 2009, Viernheim, Germany
Whole Plate Wet Collodion Negative - August 2009, Viernheim, Germany - (the streak is from "lens flare")
Wet Collodion Negatives are intense and a lot of fun. They take some pratice and there's no "high-wow" factor for the public, but they are really special for personal work and for POP (Albumen prints/Salt prints) prints.

Making Albumen Prints from Wet Collodion Negatives

Albumen printing is tricky, but pays off once you get it down.

Today, I was having issues with sensitizing the Albumen paper. I wanted to check the difference between the single coated and double coated paper that I made a coupe of weeks ago. I'm going to be floating a bunch this weekend and wanted to make sure that the double coated paper was worth the effort (it is!).

I used a Hake brush to sensitize (brushed the silver nitrate on the Albumen paper) and got some "measles" on one of the prints and "weakness" in areas of the other print. Tomorrow, I'm going to use the 3 minute float on the AGNO3 - it's much better.

So far, my German Albumen paper is "da bomb"! The final images on Albumen paper will be much better than these, but I wanted to show you the process - as you can see, it's not for pussies.

 

Checking the print in the contact frame. You can see I have some "brush strokes" there - weak silver from a previous batch in the brush - and my technique wasn't perfect either. Just some quick prints for testing.
Here, you can see those "measles" - other than that, it's okay. Keep in mind, these are "in camera" negatives, or foundation negatives, they have not been intensified or re-developed (yet). That's my next step - I'll compare Albumen prints - before and after.

 
This negative was a bit more dense (maybe 1.75) You can see the "silver issue" in the bottom right. Both of these images are gold toned.

Köln (Cologne), Germany Wet Plate Collodion Workshop

I spent the last couple of days teaching a workshop in Leichlingen, Germany (just outside of Köln). It was a great workshop – we had five participants: Vernon, Robert, Marcus, Artur, and Ugo. They made some wonderful images! Every student caught on fast and was up to speed making plates on their own in hours, amazing!

Vernon set up the studio space – it was very nice – ArtLight Studios. We made images with natural light and had two models to work with. I’m looking forward to seeing work from all of these guys, and Ugo, let’s talk about an exhibition in Belgrade, Serbia!

 

"Vernon Trent" - The first image of the workshop. This is made with window light and my Derogy lens - 12 seconds - 5"x7" Black Glass Ambrotype. 
Workshop student, Vernon Trent made this plate. A nice still life made with a Russian 5"x7" camera. This is an Alumitype. 
And another Alumitype. 
5"x7" Alumitype portrait from the workshop. 
And one more Alumitype - 5"x7"
There were about 30 plates made from the five students at the workshop.