More portraiture of students

I just did three days of in-class tintype demos with my students.  The assignment was for them to come up with a concept for a double-portrait.  Some nice results, and I got to work out some of the kinks in my portrait setup.  It's coming along nicely.

 

Amber Tipton and Maria Orrosetia

 

Sara Poyfair and Olivia Themudo

Priscilla Ruiz and Westley Harwart 

 Matthew McDaniel and Sean Wilson 

Charity Roberts and Hayley Norwood

 

Malana Choi (in drag) and Heather Van der Dys

DIY Headstand for portraits

In my constant quest to come up with functional wet-plate equipment that I can make cheaply, I end up doing a lot of design on the fly.  My latest invention is a pretty sweet little headstand.

First off, I got a cymbal stand from a local music shop.  Cymbal stands are pretty sturdy, have nice big rubber feet to keep them in place, and a low center of gravity.  Here is the one I started with, which has a boom arm that doesn't show in this image because it is hidden in the upright tube.  Here is a link to the actual stand, it costs about $50, and is one of the bottom-end models.

 

I also got a the cheapest little guitar stand available- it costs $13 and you can see it here.

 

The top part of this little stand has a nice padded foam pad on it, with plastic caps.  It can also be pretty easily bent, so the forks can be spread apart a bit.  It's made to hold a guitar neck, but a human neck is a bit wider of course.  

This has been the hardest part for me to find!  Something that can cradle the back of the head, comfortably.  I've been keeping an eye out for sanything that has this shape and the padding- and I found this while exploring at the music store.

The shaft is way too long, so I clamped it to my workbench and cut off most of it using a hacksaw.  It's not very thick or very hard metal, so that was easy.  Here it is before I filed down the end-

I took this to my local orange-themed big box hardware store I found one of these lovely items-  

A lag shield that was just small enough to fit into the tube seen above.  A lag shield is basically like a metal version of a sheetrock anchor, it's made for holding big lag screws.

Next, I took the very top portion of the cymbal stand off -

The threaded part on the top is a standard 5/16" thread, a bit too thick to go into the lag shield, so I used a drill bit to make the inside wider-

Then the threaded part of the cymbal stand fit right in.  I slipped the lag shield into the tube of the neck-rest until the end of it is flush, then screwed so the threads right into the lag shield, spreading the two halves of it until it's snug.

 

When it's all in there, I put the top portion of the cymbal stand back on and it looks like this-

 

And here's how it looks with the boom arm out, holding a person in place.  The black thing on the stand is a ten-pound ankle weight I got at Target- 2 for $25.

This seems to be a real solution!  I'll be testing it out next week to make sure.

I do love the challenge of trying to piece together something from numerous sources, and having it work out this well!!  My portrait operation is really coming together.

I made two of these- so, $50 for the stand, $13 for the brace, $2 for the lag shield and $12.50 for the weight- a grand total of around $75-$80.  They have a nice heft to them and with the padded brace, it's actually quite comfortable and keeps those eyes in focus!

A few new portraits

I've been working for a long time on making my collodion outfit really workable for doing portraits.  As a creative form, I've admired many portraits, but I admit they've not been something I really was compelled to make myself.  But I do love the look of a tintype portrait.

Here are some plates I did a few weeks ago, experimenting with some new lenses, trying varying crops and lighting schemes.

Linda Sears

This was the best of the bunch.  I like the closeness of it.  The light is more frontal, with an open window for fill (you can see it in her glasses).  I was worried that the head being cut off at the top would be distracting, but I don't really even notice it.  The light backdrop is my slide-projector screen.

Linda Sears

Another one of my wife, this one closer in, about a tight as I'm able to manage, and I'm happy with that.  The close crop effectively eliminates the backdrop, making her hair the real framing for her face.  This one is with a smaller light for a fill, making her cheek on the right come out of the darkness.

Erdal Paksoy

Erdal, my brother-in-law.  I had him sit in a wingback chair, to get good head support for the long exposures.  I think his look is very pensive.

Jules Sears

Jules, wife of Erdal and sister to Linda.  I was really happy with this one, her look is intense but natural and the shoulder-tilt is effective.

Bryan Wing

Bryan is a student at Collin College who wanted to learn wet plate, we have a project idea we are working on-  tintypes of competitive beard-growing contenstants.  Should be fun!

Me

I can't rightfully put others in front of the camera if I'm not willing to go there myself, so, a quick self-portrait in my darkroom apron.

For a first few efforts, I think this is some success!  But there are more kinks to work out and things to perfect.  Onward and upward.

Shadows and Ether at the Bath House Cultural Center

Dallas area fellow Collodion artist Frank Lopez has curated a show of Collodion artists, most of whom live and work in the DFW area, including a few of his own students.

Four of my works are in the show- Swerve and Abductor Pollicis from the "On the Nature of Things" Odium Theologicum, which was originally in the "Excellent Specimens" show, as well as Pretiosissimi Sanguinis.

The show runs April 27 - May 18 at the Bath House Cultural Center, 521 E Lawther Drive, Dallas.

Juror's Prize Winner- Methods (Alternative) at Kiernan Gallery, Feb 2013

So, I'm a little slow on updating the website.  I'll have to get better about that.

This was a pleasant surprise- a few months ago I entered several pieces for consideration in the show Methods (Alternative) at Kiernan Gallery - which was juried by one of the great Alt Process mavens- Christopher James.   My work, CYCL, was selected as the Juror's Prize Award Winner.  The very next email I got after the one telling me I had been awarded this honor, was from Mr James himself, who had some other very good news for me...  that I'm not at liberty to divulge just yet.  But, I am very happy about it.

Here is the interview posted on the gallery blog.

Nice to get a little attention!

On the Nature of Things- new work from Summer 2012.  Not even titled yet!

On the Nature of Things- the complete suite (so far)

Abductor Pollicis, 2012  23"x30" inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative

The words text and texture share a common latin root- TEXO- to weave; to braid together; to construct with elaborate care.

SYN. see LIE, 2012  22" x 30" inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative

This surprising, yet intuitively clear bond of meaning, serves as the central metaphor for this suite of photographs. Language and sensation- the textual and the textural- are processes of pattern perception. Meanings are woven from words just as lived experience is interlaced with bodily feeling. To me, the hand-made, physical photographic image is the ideal way to express how concepts have a tactile presence because they are woven, because they are stitched together from what Barthes calls a “tissue of signs.”

 

the Catholic, 2012  22" x 30"  Inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative

The title, On the Nature of Things, is derived from an epic philosophical poem written in the 1^st century BC by the Roman writer Titus Lucretius Carus, as an attempt to dispel superstitious beliefs in the supernatural and the consequent fears of death, by articulating a philosophy of the natural world then known as Atomism.  Over 2000 years ago, this philosophy uncannily presaged much of the work of contemporary scientists working in the fields of quantum physics. 

Atomism, 2012   22"x 30" inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative

 

The work was controversial when it was first written, more so when it was re-found and translated during the Renaissance, and it stands today as an eloquent testament to the dangers of dogmatic fundamentalism.  

Egyptians Jerusalem, 2012  22"x30" inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative

 

With this work, I am making a statement about the beauty of mutable meanings.  Just as our minds and bodies are composed of atoms that were recently (and will soon be again) elsewhere in the universe, our concepts and thoughts will spread, evolve, and recombine in an infinitely complex, woven pattern, with no pre-set goal or meaning.  

Crease, 2012  22"x 30" inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative

This is the central message of all existentialist, post-structural, and post-modern thought.  This idea brings anxiety to the mind of a fundamentalist; it brings peace to mine.  

Mare Tranquiliatus, 2012   22"x 30"  inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative

I work in an antiquated, hand-made photographic process called Wet Plate Collodion, because I think it is uniquely suited to expressing these ideas.  Every image made with this process is a balance of the orderly organization of information through the glass lens of the camera, with the unpredictable and unavoidable chemical and physical randomness in the plate that records the image. 

CYCL,  2012   22"x30" inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative

By photographing degraded reference texts, plaster molds, and other materials that record the physical actions taken upon them, my goal is to make images of undeniable and unashamed beauty, that speak of the deep connection between ideas and their physical manifestation.

Ruminate, 2012  22"x30" Inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative

Fascia, 2012  22"x30" inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative

 All images at 22" x 30" are in editions of 5, 11"x14" in edition of 10