Contact Printers Guild Newsletter
May 2006
We are pleased to announce that Linda Elvira Piedra has joined the Guild. You can read more about her in this newsletter or on the Contact Printers Guild website. Be sure to look at her images in the online store; they have been described as having a distinct, active allure. “I want to make a loop,” she says, “I want what I see to live in the negative and come alive in the print.”
Gerhard Bock has been selected to receive a Merit Award from B&W Magazine. One of his images is shown below along with more information about the award. We are very happy for this hard-working Guild member.
“The medium of photography can record not only what the eyes see, but that which the mind’s eye sees as well. The camera is not only an extension of the eye, but of the brain.” This quote by Wynn Bullock really applies to the Guild’s philosophy and the new work of Andrew Frith that you will find below in the IN FOCUS section. He continues to push his art and seeing with stunning results.
For more than a decade, Linda Elvira Piedra has made most of her images with an old wooden 8x10" Kodak D-2 camera and uncoated lenses. Occasionally she has used a 4x5" and even a 35mm. She is devoted to the traditions of the contact print by processing and hand-printing all her own work. She uses pyro for film developer and prepares her paper developers from old Ansco formulas, completing the printing process with selenium toning. Finished prints are spotted and then dry mounted onto Rising Museum Board. Following is her Artist’s Statement.
“The camera opened a door inside me through which I could observe the world, and it has often been that the camera itself has revealed the world to me. I began photography out of a desire to see things as they are. I had to find some way to make a relationship between my own nature and the Nature of Reality. Only by engaging my energies in this pursuit would my life have gravity. I do not separate my aims for understanding from my photographic work. This work provides the means and material for me to confront my life and find meaning.
“My first photographs were portraits, and I called them paintings of the interior. I feel all of my work, no matter what the subject, has this orientation toward portraiture. The process had already been initiated in me, a wish to see deeply and honestly into life in order to understand. Looking into others became also looking into myself. With the camera I discovered an unfamiliar world, while at the same time affirming my essential belief in the beauty of the world. So began real seeing.
“Photography is a meaningful record of facts and offers a possibility to reveal the true Nature within human beings, this Nature that arises as an expression of naturalness. Gradually, naturally, I have turned my gaze to it. It is the forming of a relationship with Nature. In water particularly I find myself met, not only mirrored, and enlarged, with my affinity to see into its depths, its many layers, and celebrate its movement and change. My awareness of change is a part of my concern for time, in which no moment is ever repeated, whether it is a pattern etched in the river or the expression on a face. What I find true in people I find in Nature as well—a quiet place for stillness and beauty.”
To see more images, click here to visit Elvira's web site.
As photography continues to mature and gain respect in the art community, we must remember that it is very young compared to painting and sculpture. However, photography is present today in most major museums’ exhibitions. At a recent event of the Portland Art Museum, the chairman of the Photo Council stated repeatedly how important it is to see and to hold good photographs. In discussions with collectors, one thing seems to remain true: “Buy photographs that interest you and that you like.”
To the left is one of the images you’ll find in our store, George Provost’s “Ice Cascades, Alaska.” We know that it is very difficult to see the true beauty of a contact print from a scanned image on your computer, so we have always offered an unconditional guarantee. If you are not satisfied with any photograph you have purchased from the online store, you can return it for a refund. We currently have over 350 photographs available for your inspection; just click on the link below to quickly and easily view our catalog. The store is a secure site that allows you to purchase using your credit card or PayPal account.
Two of Gerhard Bock’s photos have been chosen for a Merit Award by B&W Magazine. They will be included in their Portfolio Contest 2006 “Special Issue” coming out the first week of June. The images (one is at left) were shot in Mexico using a Holga camera.
John Wimberley's work is featured online at Soulcatcherstudio.com through May. The show will emphasize new work and older photos not seen on his web site. Click on the image of “Descending Angel” on the home page to see his show. You can also view his images in Soulcatcher's print ad in B&W Magazine.
The John Cleary Gallery is also showing John Wimberley’s work online. Click on "Previous Exhibitions" to see his images.
John Wimberley has introduced “Wimberley Special Editions.” Loosely modeled on the “Ansel Adams Special Edition—Yosemite,” these are numbered, open-edition prints of about 6x8" on an 11x14" mat. Unlike Ansel's, John prints and mounts them himself rather than employing assistants. The price range is $225 - $300, depending on the image. At present, there are 13 pictures in the Special Edition, including many of his most popular. To see these images, click on the “Special Edition” button on his home page. They are made to the same standards as his normal fine prints. These prints make marvelous gifts for friends and loved ones, and for oneself. They currently can be ordered through his website or through the Levin Gallery in Monterey, California.
Joe Freeman's and George Provost's images continue to show at the Paul Paletti Gallery through the beginning of June. The address of the gallery is 713 East Market Street, Louisville, KY.
The Camerawork Gallery in Portland, Oregon, will feature Patrick Kolb’s Azo prints from July 22 to August 18. The gallery is located on the Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital campus in Peterson Hall, 2255 NW Northrup Street in Portland. The regular open hours are 9 AM - 5 PM Monday through Friday and 1-5 PM Saturday. An opening reception is set for Sunday, July 23, from 1 to 4 PM.
Ray Bidegain
Ray Bidegain is teaching two workshops in conjunction with the Portland Photographers Forum. The first is entitled “The Fine Art of Platinum Printing with Ray Bidegain” and will take place from May 19-21, 2006. To sign up for one of the few open spots, please contact Ray at the link below as soon as possible.
Ray’s second class this year, to be held September 15-17, 2006, is called “The Portrait and Figure Workshop.” It will explore the portrait and figure in a wonderful setting in the Columbia Gorge near Portland.
Click here for more information or to sign up for these classes.
John Wimberley
“Sight and Insight—A Workshop on Seeing in Photography,” is being offered by John Wimberley October 6-8, 2006. This workshop, also under the aegis of Portland Photographers Forum, is open to all photographers, regardless of format and whether film or digital. Tuition is $250 and the class is limited to 10 students. To sign up, please contact Robert Brummitt at (503) 614-0161, or e-mail robert8x10@hotmail.com.
My journey to wet-plate collodion photography has been a long one.
As a visual artist for more than 20 years, I have at one time or other been a video artist (I was Timothy Leary’s videographer), a 3D animator (I worked at the NHK high-definition research lab in Tokyo, Japan), a music video director (I designed the titles for the MTV music awards one year), a special effects artist (I did a sequence for a Disney movie), a print designer (I was a music CD cover designer and worked with Wired magazine) and now a large-format photographer. I guess you could say either I like experimenting or I can’t stick at one thing—probably both!
It was the beauty of alternate-process photography that originally drew me to large format. I was really yearning to do something that felt very hand-made rather than the more precise, commercial visual art I had been mostly involved with and which, to a large extent, was created with the use of a computer. I have probably tried my hand at almost every alternate process there is. I’ve done platinum/palladium, gum bichromate, albumen, salt, casein, bromoil and silver-chloride contact prints with varying degrees of success.
In my search for the hand-made aesthetic, I eventually stumbled upon wet-plate photography. As far as photography is concerned, it doesn’t get more hand-made than this process. The process is very much DIY: Film holders have to be modified, and it employs hazardous and hard-to-find chemicals. Strange darkroom contraptions have to be built, and even head-braces have to be used whilst taking portrait shots because of significantly long exposure times. But the end product is a one-off unique piece of art that is both visual and tactile at the same time, and after varnishing with a mixture of lavender oil and sandarac gum, it even smells good!
Historically, this process was in vogue only between 1850 and 1880, so it was very much a Victorian technology. As it was also the photography that existed during the American Civil War, many people have seen and are familiar with tintype portraits of those soldiers going to war as examples of this technology.
Wet-plate photographs can be done on glass or tin. Done on glass, they are called ambrotypes; done on tin, tintypes. The term “wet-plate” refers to the fact that the light-sensitive plate is created and prepared just minutes before taking the photograph and is still “wet” when inserted into the film or plate holder of a large-format camera. The plate must then be processed within minutes of taking the photograph. In some ways, it's like a Victorian Polaroid in that it's a unique, one-off work that is finished soon after the exposure is made.
The process involves pouring a quantity of a solution of collodion, ether, alcohol and bromides onto a glass or tin plate and letting it set momentarily until it forms a very thin “skin.” This skin is then sensitized in a silver nitrate solution. The plate is then inserted into the camera and the exposure made. Exposures will range from a few seconds to several minutes. Once the exposure is taken, the image is developed by pouring a small quantity of developer consisting of ferrous sulphate/acetic acid and 190-proof alcohol, then fixed with either regular sodium thiosulphate or a solution of potassium cyanide. (EXTREME CAUTION is required if this last chemical is used, because improper handling and lack of correct procedures could lead to hydrogen cyanide gas being produced, which is DEADLY!!!). To ensure the greatest archival qualities, the plate is then warmed under an alcohol lamp and a varnish mixture of lavender oil and sandarac gum is poured onto the plate and allowed to dry.
Because the plate is a very slow emulsion, the wet-plate photographer is, in most cases, forced to shoot very wide open in comparison to most modern photographers. This is why you will often see in Victorian photography that characteristic shallow depth of field. Victorian lens designs were also designed by necessity with speed as the driving factor above all else, including resolution and lack of spherical aberrations; so the Petzval lens design, which is extremely simple by today’s standards, was the most commonly used as it allowed a relatively fast lens.
One of the unintended side effects of a Petzval lens is a strange quality to the “out-of-focus” areas of a photograph. You don’t see this with modern lens designs, especially the super-sharp plasmats that most large-format photographers use. The Japanese have a word in their language, bokeh, to refer to “the quality of being out of focus.” I find it interesting that the English language doesn’t have a word to describe something you find in nearly every photograph; but in the world of photography, we have borrowed the Japanese word to refer to this quality in an image. I’ve even read long arguments in online photo forums talking about “good” bokeh vs. “bad” bokeh.
I have become a fan of these old lenses, which are really very beautiful hand-made objects in themselves. For the ambrotype shot above I used a very large brass Darlot/Jamin lens which is over 130 years old. Through my research, I believe it is the same make and model lens that Julia Margaret Cameron often used. In fact, it was after seeing a Cameron exhibition in London several years ago that I was initially drawn to the world of large-format photography in the first place. I feel like I might stick with wet-plate photography for quite awhile this time.
The spring issue of The Large Format Journal will be featuring Guild members Joe Freeman and John Wimberley.
For a preview of the interview our own Gerhard Bock did with John, you can go to John’s website and click on interview. This insightful dialogue shows what goes into creating a great photograph.
Gerhard Bock – California Back Roads
Gerhard made use of the few sunny days Northern California had this March and April for several outings. He explored the back roads of rural Solano, Yolo and Sacramento Counties (located east of the San Francisco Bay area) and made several new negatives of freshly tilled fields, towering clouds over dirt roads and similar rural scenes. These images are part of an ongoing project photographing the landscapes of the Sacramento Valley, itself the northern extension of California's Central Valley. This area of flat expanses, bordered by rolling hills in the west and by the Sierra Foothills in the east, has traditionally been ignored by landscape photographers, although in recent years the central-southern section of the Central Valley has found prominence in the stunning images of Modesto-based master photographer Roman Loranc.
Gerhard believes that beautiful images can be made anywhere, of any landscape. “For me, photographing in my own backyard, so to speak, can be much more gratifying than trying to find new ways to photograph our national parks,” he says. Gerhard is currently offering 8x10" platinum/palladium prints of these images at a special price of $95 in our online store. (The temporary discount will expire on June 15.)
Matthew Magruder – Texas Churches
For the last few months, Matt and four other photographers have been working on the Texas Church Project. Recently, he visited the Church of the Visitation in Westphalia, TX, built in 1895 and the largest wooden church west of the Mississippi River. Matt met up with Mike Castles, another member of the project, near Marlin, TX and drove over to Westphalia to visit the church and, hopefully, expose some film.
“When we arrived, a baptism was just finishing up and the caretaker said we were more than welcome to spend some time photographing in the church. Both Mike and I were overwhelmed with the wonderful midday light: lots of contrast, magnificent shadows and highlights, all creating some striking image possibilities. I had brought both my 5x7 and my 7x17 cameras. To be completely honest, I didn’t ‘see’ much in the church that seemed to fit the panoramic format of the 7x17. I spent a good amount of time with the 5x7 in my mind, looking at compositions and potential images to make. I made a few negatives with my 5x7 and a longer 10” lens, enjoying the isolated images it helped me to create.
“Upon seeing one of the side aisles, I felt that immediate chord strike as I saw a tall, slender composition, one that made the somewhat overbearing effort of shooting 7x17 in the vertical position seem trivial and easy. After setting up the camera and moving it a few times to get a better composition, I called Mike over to share what I had set up. I mentioned the potential problems I had with the overall feel of the photograph, and Mike quite nonchalantly suggested I move up a step behind the lectern.
“And it all fell into place.”
Matt is offering images from this project in the store, some at special prices.
Ray Bidegain – Columbia Gorge
“Last Sunday I had a free day to go out and do some photography. I had the whole day and planned to make some art. What I ended up doing was driving around all day ‘looking’ for a place to stop. I am sure you all have been through it. I traveled up the Columbia Gorge, taking a road I had been down before. On previous trips I had noticed many great-looking spots for photographs, but I had not had time to stop. Today I had plenty of time to stop anywhere I wanted.
So along I go till I see some oak trees that look promising on the side of the road. I stop, get out of the car, and look around. Yes, there are trees; but there is also a car, a fence, and the sun coming from the wrong direction. I am sure of it. I’m back in the car. Next I see some nice views of a small lake, so I pull off the highway and head down a small road. I get to the lake and see approximately 50 signs of various shapes and sizes telling me this is all somebody else’s stuff. Back in the car and off I go, still looking forward to some photography. By now I have been driving for two hours and I really want out of the car, so I pull over and have a look at Bonneville Dam. It looks interesting, but the air seems a little hazy from the water spray and there are no clouds in the sky, so I say to myself, ‘Maybe I will come back here another day.’ This little script played out in similar ways all day long. I ended up driving 90 miles and taking exactly zero photographs.
Sadly, I do not have some kind of well-conceived answer to this whole scenario. I have been asking myself if maybe I gave up too quickly on the sights I did stop to look at. Or maybe it is better to choose a destination and just stay there for the whole day, to wait for something to inspire me to make a photograph. I am not really sure.
I would be interested to hear from any of our readers who work in the landscape about how they resolve this dilemma. Email us at info@contactprintersguild.com with your thoughts and next month we will publish some of the responses in the newsletter.
Special-Offer Prints by Guild Members
Please have a look at this issue's special-offer prints on our website.