Archive for the ‘striptiz’ Category
Wet Plate Collodion + digital illustration = a creative portrait of Kaja Avberšek
Kaja Avberšek, an illustrator
Month ago I’ve made this portrait, but haven’t published it on my blog. Kaja Avberšek is an illustrator, so I suggested her that I’ll make a wet plate and then she’ll draw on it. Unfortunately I was doing small 4×5″ plates, on the field, so she didn’t draw directly on the plate, but did it on her computer. This is the result. It was published in Mladina weekly and I love how it turned out. Sometimes the publication is an icing on a cake and many times it’s just the opposite, but this time it’s definitely presenting my picture in the best way. Is it a bird? Is it Superman? Or is it topshit?
OK, I’m introducing a new rubric on my blog. It’s a quizzzzzz!!! I’ll be publishing my mistakes I have done with a question what is the cause of the mistake and few days later I’ll publish the answer. Of course if you will not guess it first. Let’s start with an easy one. Here are two plates. Problematic plate has some lines in blacks and in the right bottom corner even collodion lifted off. The other plate has perfect blacks, no peeling problems. What was the cause of those lines on the crappy plate?
Digital and analog manipulation by Collodion Bastard
final result, portrait of a band Napravi mi dete
In Friday’s Mladina weekly there will be published my portrait of a band Napravi mi dete (make me a child). I’ve done their portrait on Mamiya C330, on film format 6×6. Then I develop the film and exposed a wet plate collodion plate, but with chemistry of Miša Keskenović (based on receipts of J. M. Eder) that was meant for contrasty wetplate negatives. We’ve made few tests with different developers and we got results that somewhat might be opalotypes. I’ve scanned the plate and it was alright but I’ve took a step forward and hold it over flame so it broke. Cracks are more controllable then you might think, but still very unpredictable. Plate literally exploded in my hand, since I hold the flame too much in the middle of the plate. You can see the hole where all cracks are coming from. Left bottom corner. I’m attaching how pieces of the plate looked like on my scanner and then I digitally sew them together. Is this a digital manipulation? I decided to sew the pieces together digitally, because I already scratched the surface of my scanner while scanning plates. It’s a though job, being a collodion bastard, but someone have to do it…
Post Scriptum:
Today I’ve bought a table saw. Before devoting completely to photography, I’ve made a secondary school for carpentry and now I’m getting in touch with my inner carpenter. I’m planning to make my own frames, silver and fixer baths, copying frames,…
every Colodion Bastard need a good table saw!
Self-portrait like a cave photographer
In Friday’s issue of Mladina weekly there will be an article about my portraits and I’ve made this self-portrait today with the help of my wife Alenka Peterlin. The inspiration for the portrait was a couple. First I’ve heard many times, that in wetplate technique I look like a native American, second inspiration was to include an element of exploration and third was that it should look raw.
That’s my aim in photography to explore, search and learn. I know I’m doing it in primitive, raw way, but that’s exactly me, having a hell of a good time. Photography is for me what for some people religion is. A mean to become a better man, to transcend boundaries that were set, to change the world. I hope this (blind) faith is captured in the image 
Technical side: It was pretty cold, like -2C and to work at this temperature I’m using a normal developer, I’m just developing longer. Usually about 30-35seconds. I extend also sensibilisation of a plate from usual 3 minutes to 5 minutes. And that all there is. Sometimes I add two drops of nitric acid in 100ml of developer, but that’s not so important at working bellow 0C. It was a lot of light so the exposure was 3sec, f/11. This portrait was taken with Kodak Folding Brownie 3A from year about 1905.
I couldn’t have done the portrait without my lovely wife Alenka Peterlin, she is also a photographer. Thank you
You can see this and many other of my creative portraits on the exhibition in the gallery of Institut Jozef Stefan. Opening Monday 18.2.2013 at 18.00.
A portrait of painters White Ice Cream
Artist’s collective White Icecream are often using brick pattern in their work, so the element is included in the photograph.
Last week I was commissioned to do a portrait of painters duo White Ice Cream. I’ve done a fantastic portrait of them two years ago and I was reluctant to do another portrait, but a commission is a commission and they are great blocks, so I was very excited to see what we will as their portrait. We were talking and we agreed that we will repeat the brick pattern from their cloths that were an art piece. We tried to make a snowman, but in Ljubljana there was no snow anymore so we went to Krvavec mountain, but snow there was too dry, too frozen, so we made this sort of characters. My idea was that they should go full monty and with one hand cover their “pride” and in the other hand they would hold an ice cream, but they were not up for it. We had a good laugh once again 
A portrait of the collective White Ice Cream in year 2011
New creative portrait, Lucija Stepančič
Lucija Stepančič, a painter and a writer
Photo: Darko Sintič,
Koncept and post-process: Borut Peterlin
Last week I had super fever with body temperature up to 39,6C and I couldn’t go to Ljubljana and make a portrait for Mladina. I asked a student of mine Darko Sintič to take a portrait and I explained him what I need. I took his images and chop them into pieces and polaroids from them. I used poladroid software. After I finished with post-process I was in a state of high fever dreaming whole night this images. I realized I should use dropshadow on polaroids and probably I should use some sort of texture for background. I wasn’t really sure if it’s OK, but now, with time distance I’m satisfied with the result. Ladies and Gentleman, Lucija Stepančič, a painter and a writer.
PS: I’m healthy now. Today I’ve carefully jogged few kilometers and I’m great. Great feeling, great energy!
Portrait of Tanja Radež with Wet Plate Collodion technique
Tanja Radez, a graphic designer
Here is yesterday’s portrait of Tanja Radež, a graphic designer. It will be published in Friday’s Mladina weekly. I portrayed her in park Tivoli in downtown of Ljubljana, Slovenia. It looks like she’s illuminated with some sort of soft lights, but she’s not. It’s just a diffuse light in a shade. I asked her to sit on the first stairs of the staircase, so there was a lot of light from the (northern) sky. I used a 4×5″ camera with a Linhof 135mm f/3,5 lens and exposure was 6 seconds. Look at the background at the top of the image. I love the bookeh of this lens. It’s just a poetry!
All my Wet Plate Collodion chemicals were in a cold box, to keep the temperature down and I add a small spoon of sugar to my developer, to prolong the developing time. Finally I’m getting good results during summer temperatures. I was photographing at -17C and it was no problem (aside that I was cold), but during summer it’s crazy to develop collodion plates. Well problem solved and my time machine will work on full power
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Tukaj je včerajšnji portret Tanje Radež, oblikovalke. Objavljen bo v petkovi Mladini. Portretiral sem jo v parku Tivoli, v Ljubljani. Izgleda, kot bi bila osvetljena s kako mega mehko lučjo, a je nisem doosvetljeval. Samo prosil sem jo, da sede na prve stopnice, kjer je bila svetloba severnega neba najlepša, najbolj difuzna in dokaj močna. Uporabil sem svojo 4×5″ kamero z objekivom Linhof 135mm f/3,5 in ekspozicija je bila 6 sekund. Poglejte neostrino v zgornjem robu fotografije. Kako obožujem ta bookeh objektiva! Čista poezija.
Vse moje kemikalije so bile v hladilni torbi in v razvijalec sem dal žličico sladkorja, da bi s tem podaljšal čas razvijanja. Končno dobivam dobre rezultate v poletnem vremenu! Sem že fotografiral pri -17C in ni bilo problema, razen tega, da me je zeblo, a razvijat plošče pri poletnih temperaturah je norišnica. No, sedaj je problem rešen in moja časovna mašinca dela na polno!
New portraits with an old Linhof camera
Yesterday I bought a telescope bar so I can hang a backdrop outside. I never liked to photograph on a seamless background, but with this classic camera I fall in love in this clean aesthetic and so I bought this expensive bar, that allows me to set up a background just anywhere. Yesterday I photographed two artists. Hanna Preus is an artist dealing with sound art, I made this portrait for Mladina weekly and second one I made by pure coincidence. Žiga called for an information and since he asked me to make his portrait quite some time ago and I was on a highway, just passing his house, I stopped and made his portrait. I use this classical beauty Linhof Technika, format 9x12cm. For illumination I use northern light, photographing in the shade as old masters did and as Richard Avedon made his portraits In the American West. How do you like it? Is it better then Avedon’s? Ha, ha, I’m not pushing my luck, just joking, I had to ask
“Punk’s not dead” banner at graveyard / creative portrait
Today’s first of November, a holiday of All Saints or as we in Slovenia call it, a day for all deceased. Yes, you are right, the inspiration for a hard-core punker’s portrait is just to good. Štef Grmek is a driving force of Punk Kura association that is organizing alternative culture events. Recently I published a post about a concert in Kewdr underground club and in friday’s Mladina weekly issue this portrait will be published.
Portrait commisioned by Mladina weekly and you can see more of my creative portraits on my site.
New creative portrait Jožica Curk and Mateja Panter
Jožica Curk and Mateja Panter, architects and industrial designers, authors of a project Hi Konjiček / Giddy-up Rocking Horse. The inspiration for their rocking horse is a retro design from year 1956 and the principle re:use, re:design, re:think. I hope their concept is noted also in my portrait. I’ve made a portrait at Trnovo riding club in Ljubljana and in post-process I used split toning, adding grain, vignetting, displacing, warping and last but not least I combined two images in photoshop to get this cracks on the picture. I used a texture of a cracked stone. 
If you want a video podcast on this kind of postprocess, I can do it, no problem, just leave a comment. I know that JC hates this explanations and since he makes most of the comments…
But seriously I learned a lot from Lesa Snider @CreativeLive. I’ve started working with Photoshop 3.0 in year 1995 and I feel comfortable with it, but exactly that’s why I’m keep on buying courses and books because there is so much more to learn and it’s fun to have more ways to express yourself.
Check my site for more creative portraits & stuff www.borutpeterlin.com. Commissioned by Mladina weekly.
A creative portrait of a painter Darko Slavec
Darko Slavec is a painter whose exhibition is closing this Sunday in Koroška galerija likovnih umetnosti. His work is dealing with micro and macro cosmos and human existence in between. In his paintings few symbols are present in this or another way. Foremost bread, stars, universe, black hole,… Link to his pictures.
When I was talking to him I got this idea that I would like to make a picture that would reflect his work more then a usual portrait. I bought this photoshop class at Creativelive and armed with new knowledge of wrapping and displacing images, I said to myself: And Now for Something Completely Different. Second picture I’ve done more in conventional manner. In Mladina weekly the second image will be published. Which one do you prefer?
More of my creative portraits on my site: www.borutpeterlin.com
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