Archive for the ‘Photography’ Category
Woodland Beyond Photography 2016
Woodland Beyond Photography is an event where photographers, artists and enviornmentalists retreat in the middle of woodland and create their art. It is organised to spend a weekend in deep forest together with their families. Kočevski rog is ancient woodland in Slovenia, with largest area of virgin forests in whole Europe.
In the caves of Željne, near Kočevje, we prepared an exhbition on the theme Light Shining In, so I invited three artist that creates their art with camera obscura: Michalina Hendrys (PL), Miša Keskenović (SLO) and Gerald Figal (USA). The philosopher dr. Pavel Koltaj gave a speach on the theme Plato’s Cave and how does that relates to our everyday life.
Peter Rauch and Tomaž Pipan both artists based in Slovenia have created a sculpture suspended in the air. Sara Figal (USA) made a sculpture with knitting among trees. Marcus Gabriel (IT) and Christian Klant (D) were making wet plate collodion plates. Photographs and videos used in this video were made by Adrijan Pregelj, Gregor Koščak, Boštjan Pucelj, Miša Keskenović, Anže Grabeljšek and myself.
Disclaimer voice: Pierre Van de Vliert
Music by David Cutter Music www.davidcuttermusic.co.uk
On the very end I would like to appologise to those who could not join us. The event was organised by myself, without any budget or as I’ve called it, budget-free event, so the only way I could pull this event off is to invite people who are either my friends or friends of my friends. We did not had a support from outside so we all had to contribute to make this event happen. And it did happen!
Last but not least, as a proud father of two daughters I encourage them to get in contact with nature, but a father alone can not do it, so I organise these kind of events were there are tons of kids and we all have a blast.
See you next year and mark the 28th, 29th and 30th of July 2017! And let us not forget… Topshit does happen!
Borut
PS: I am a patreon of great artist David Cutter, without whose music my videos would not be the same. My work is also supported by patreons, so I thank you for that. If you appreciate what I do and you might want to donate me a cup of tea or a pizza every month, you can do it ON THIS LINK.
Contrast control in Wet Plate Colodion process
Plate on the left was normaly exposed (5 seconds) and normaly developed (18 seconds), plate on the right was exposed for 10 seconds and developed for only 8 seconds.
Few days ago I’ve finished a bacis collodion workshop and part of my workshop is a demonstration of contrast control in wet plate collodion process. I thought this might be intersting topic, so here’s a short post. Plate on the left is normaly developed and exposed and plate on the right is overexposed and underdeveloped. As you can see the middle tones are about the same, but the plate on the left has no details in highlights. This is usual push / pull process that is very well known in film photography and the same goes for wet plate collodion process.
Have you ever heard that a collodion mixture becomes more contrasty with aging? Well, that’s merly a false myth. Collodion becomes less sensitive and if a photographer is using the same exposure times with old colloodion, the plates are in fact undrexposed and on top of that overdeveloped, so of course the end result is much more contrasty then it was with fresh collodion, but if you want to have low contrast with old collodion, you only need to overexpose and underdevelop! So the cause of contrasty plates is not the age of collodion, but underexposure and overdevelopment.
This is what I’ve learned from Mark Osterman.
Here are two more plates that I’ve manages to make a reproduction of.
Unbroken Tree Spirit / Retouched Wet Plate Collodion Negative
Dear readers of my blog, I am very late with my production of videos. I have great excuses, but you do not follow this blog because of great excuses, so I will spare you🙂
I think this video is alright. It took me two days to upload it, because of technical issues, but I’m satisfied with it. Only today I’ve noticed I haven’t used any drone shots, too bad.
For wet plate collodion photographers there will be interesting the following example. In the video I’ve said that at the first test the fog appeared because I waited too long before subbing the plate to silver nitrate. Actually I’ve recoded the explanations, but it is too long and boring, so I’ve edit it out. I can tell you now why I knew what is the cause of fogging. Please observe corners. Only in corner number 4 there is no fog. OK, there is some fog, but that fog is made out of sharp lines, meaning the plate was not cleaned enough. Other fog is obviously different. Corner number 4 is the corner where I’ve poured off my collodion off the plate, meaning that was the most fresh collodion. On other edges and corners fog is spreading toward the edge, from centre toward the edge. That is very clear sign of drying collodion, before the plate went to silver bath. The drying of sensitised plate looks different, very different. So my advice to you is to learn with every failed plate and every successful plate. Believe me, it is very likely that I have made much more foggy plates then you, but I have learned by doing it, so now I can do it either at temperatures of -9C (link) or at + 30C (link). Just do it and fail miserably, that is the only way to make it happen.
As you imagine to make this videos it takes a lot of time and because I’m a professional photographer, I need to justify the time investment, so I need to sell my photographs. I thank you for bidding, sharing my videos, commenting, subscribing and basically all the attention this social network is giving me. It’s my dream job and I have more to come! My prints became quite expensive (THANK YOU), but if you still want to give me a tip and buy me a cup of tea every month, you can visit THIS SITE and become my patreon.
From Revela-T, the festival of analogue photography
Last week I was in Barcelona and in Vilassar de Dalt, in Catalonia, Spain. There was the festival of analogue photography, called Revela-T. I had two workshops and a demonstration, so some days I didn’t even had time to properly eat, whereas to do videos and photographs of the event, thus a short, but cute video. I hope you will like it. I recommend to visit it next year. I know I will! Next workshop is in Berlin. All my workshops are sold out, I will make a schedule for the autumn and winter, hopefully before the New Year’s Eve! (#joking)
Transcending reality in wet plate collodion / Vlog E02, S01
Dear followers,
as I’ve promised I’m publishing my third episode (I count also the episode zero) of my vlog while pursuing my goal to publish an artist photo-book. Of course, the theme of my book will be Kočevski rog woodland and this time I went to one of the most beautiful places, Ponikve valley.
I was wondering how long should my vlog videos be and what should be the mix of entertainment and informative content. This is what I think it’s good. Please let me know your opinion. In each episode I will include a tip or two about the process, but the main topic will be artistic vision, composition, asking questions and the search for answers. Just don’t ask me to do camera review blogs, they are boring. Photography and cameras is like traveling and wheels. It is related, but not dependent upon. I will do a book review, here and there, but not one of those 100 famous photographers everybody know. I will rather do a review of work that nobody knows, like I’ve done from Peter Župnik, Herman Pivk and many others. Basically photographers whose quality does belong on top 100 list, but they will never be world famous photographers, because of circumstances.
I’ve described my intention in the previous blog post, but let me highlight that I haven’t realised before, but all the likes and shares are well important, since the large social network is the guarantee that my book will actually be published, so thank you in advance! So if you think this content is worthy, please press like and share it. If I’ve made your day, please you could buy me a cup of tea every month via my PATREON page and if you could afford, thank you for bidding on my Ebay auction.
The print on sale is an albumen print, toned with gold toner, from wet plate collodion negative. It’s listed on EBAY.
LINK to “THE BRANCH” Ebay listing
LINK to the “TWO TREES” Ebay listing
I thank David Cutter for the music and Fiona Cambell for the disclaimer voice.
Woodland Photography .eu
WHAT:
Woodland Photography .eu is three day event in deep forest of Kočevski rog in Slovenia. The main theme is photography and environmentalism, so you can expect photography expeditions, talks, projections, exhibitions, challenges and even performances. And of course bonfire with acoustic music.
It will last three days, in the last weekend of July 2016 and on the last day, Sunday 31st, it will be open for public. The core group will be around 50 people, but on the last day, Sunday 31st, local community will join us so we expect more then 300 people.
The accent of this event is to experience primal environment and primal photography. And although this will not be a workshop in classical sense of the term, there will be many demonstrations of 19th Century photography processes, like wet plate collodion, dry plate collodion negative, salt printing, albumen printing, carbon printing, cyanotype, lumen prints, large format photography,film photography, etc. And of course digital photography will be very much present. We will do time-lapse photography, photo-hunting with long telephoto lenses,…
More about the program at the bottom of this post.
WHO:
For photographers and lovers of photography. The accent will be on analogue photography, like collodion and film photography, but also digital photography will be strongly represented.
WHEN:
29th, 30th and 31st of July 2016
WHERE:
In the middle of Kočevski rog – Resa, Slovenia, in one of the deepest forest of Europe.
FOOD & DRINKS:
Food & drinks will be available, but not for free. It will be possible to make your own food, meaning there will be open fire places, so you can make your own food. Indoor kitchen facility is limited. Shop is in the valley, that’s 30 minutes drive, so daily we will organise collective shopping list and somebody from organisers will go and buy groceries.
LANGUAGE: English and Slovenian
ACCOMMODATION & PARTICIPATION FEE
Evening program is open for public and free of charge. The camping, accommodation, food and drinks will be available for purchasing.
The participation fee depends on accommodation. The prices are for three nights, per person and the contribution for the program is included.
150 EUR for camping + program
200 EUR for accommodation in shared sleeping room + program
Renting a private room is possible, please send us an email.
Discounts:
Kids under age of 15 years have 50% discount (escorted by parent).
Youth under age of 25 years have 25% discount.
CONTACT:
Please email us to info@woodlandphotography.eu
PROGRAM:
FRIDAY, 29th of July 2016
08:00 – 09:00 Breakfast
09:00 – 12:00 Setting up working conditions, photo expedition
13:00 – 15:00 lunch break
15:30 – 19:00 Photo expedition
19:00 – 21:00 Dinner
21:30 – 23:00 Talk at bonfire
SATURDAY, 30th of July 2016
04:00 – 07:00 Photo-hunt (with an escort of a hunter*)
08:00 – 09:00 Breakfast
09:00 – 12:00 photo expedition to the peak of Rog
13:00 – 15:00 lunch break (at the location Žaga Rog)
15:30 – 18:00 Photo expedition to the caves of Željnske name
18:00 – 19:00 Dinner
19:00 – 21:00 Exhibition opening and talk in the caves
21:00 – 21:30 Returning to Resa
21:30 – 23:00 Talk at bonfire
SUNDAY, 31st of July 2016
04:00 – 07:00 Photo-hunt (with an escort of a hunter*)
08:00 – 09:00 Breakfast
09:00 – 13:00 Photo expedition
10:00 – 16:00 Flea market (local hand craft, second hand photo gear, photo books,…)
13:00 – 15:00 lunch break
15:00 Forum of local community
16:00 – 18:00 Photo expedition
19:00 – 21:00 Dinner
21:30 – 23:00 Talk at bonfire
* Additional charging
Hunter escort, flying with paraglider, rafting,… are arranged individually and charged additionally.
Inspiration & manipulation photography
I confess, I always fancied manipulation of photography. Paradoxically with introduction of Photoshop (I’ve learned PS 3.0 in year 1994) I’ve lost all the interest in this field and my work in the last 15 years is more or less documentarian nature, meaning, 99,9% of my digital images would pass world press photo standards. I can’t explain why.
About a year ago I’ve made a video about my work and analog manipulation of photography, it’s embedded at the bottom of this post. All the work mentioned is very old, like my last project Fairy Tales was done in 2001-02 and let me state that is not photoshoped at all! That was selectively illuminated landscape scenes, taken on colour negative film, format 6×7. Yes, it was very hard to wait for developed proof prints to see what have I’ve done last week and often go back and redo them.
About a year ago I was at a workshop on collodion glass negative retouching in George Eastman House and beside the techniques I’ve learned I’ve seen also some fascinating examples of retouched photographs. I mean authentic photographs that you may see only in books. Mentor Mark Osterman have shown us an examples from a collection of George Eastman House and that was really inspiring.
Anyway the time has come to start a new project, dealing with nature and image manipulation. I’ve picked few books from authors Peter Župnik, Pavel Pecha, Herman Pivk and Regina Anzenberger. Intentionally I’ve picked authors that are based in East Europe and although the quality of their work does not fall behind known western authors, you probably never heard about them. East-European photography is so underrated! It is so underrated by their own countries to start with! I hope you will appreciate my suggestions and their work.
In this video I’m presenting a print I’ve made from a retouched collodion negative. About a year ago I’ve made a video how I’m making the wet plate collodion negative and the salt print and now I’m publishing the result upgraded by my knowledge gained at George Eastman House. I will talk about my next project in the next videos, but for now I’m sharing with you my creative process, my inspiration and the aesthetic I admire. I think that on youtube there is way too much camera-review videos and photographers on general are putting too much emphasising on gear and not enough on photography and the creative process of photography, so this one is a little different. Very different.
I’m putting my retouched print on ebay, as an auction and by your bidding and buying my work, you support my endeavour in art. This blog is also crowd funded at Patreon.com. Thank you guys, I appreciate it!!!
PS: I’ve started to use professional video-editing software and big thanks to Vid Klančičar for the crash course how to use it.
