Posts Tagged ‘wet plate collodion negative’
Five days alone in the forest / Vlog 98
This is a new vlog from my project A New Earth. Inspired by the work of Ana Mendieta and the philosophy of Eckhart Tolle and Alan Watts. My photography is almost like a ritual in a forest, dealing with a relationship of a man and nature.
In this vlog I’ve included the work only from one location, because the vlog is already long. More to come…
Thank you for your attention, may the Topshit be with you!
If you want to support this channel, here are three options. https://www.patreon.com/borutpeterlin https://www.borutpeterlin.com/shop/
https://www.paypal.me/borutpeterlin
A carbon print on glass, as an auction from 0,99$
| Thank you for your attention to my work. I’m listing an image of an old tree, A Silent Friend, bathing in the sunlight, showering upon us the eternity of the present moment. I made this image as a carbon print on glass from a wet plate collodion negative. The image is featured also in my book A Father’s Tale. This print is not a limited edition, but to make a single carbon print, I need to work two days also with poisonous substances like potassium dichromate, so I can’t imagine making more then a dozen prints from this negative, before I poison myself completely. A photograph with these properties is a collector’s dream item, worth to be featured in the squeal of the novel by Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose. He, he, I’m not joking about the dichromates, but I do take safety precautions seriously. Do not worry, the print is free of this sensitizer and is safe to handle. On top of that the gelatin layer is sandwiched between two glass plates. The size of the image is 25x30cm or 10×12″ and the entire glass is 40x50cm or 16×20″. The image is backed with handmade paper that adds the organic handmade feeling of the image. Carbon print on glass is by my opinion the most beautiful way how a photograph could possibly look like and it’s also the most archival. Carbon printing does not need a developer or fixer or other chemistry, just a gelatin, pigment (ink), sensitizer and hot water. I’ve made the making of video explaining and I invite you to view it on the following links: The making of the print is published above, the making of the negative from the year 2014 is published bellow. My name is Borut Peterlin, an artist from Slovenia, EU and I’ve been thought the process by the famous process historian Mark Osterman, from George Eastman House, Rochester, USA and Calvin Grier from Lyria, Spain. I’m using antique hand-made processes to achieve the aesthetics that matches my vision. Short biography: I’m a Fine Art photographer specialized in Antique Avantgarde Art, dealing with contemporary issues in 19th Century photographic processes. I’ve graduated at Prague’s FAMU Academy with a BA in photography (1994-98) and earned a Postgraduate Diploma at The London College of Printing (2002-03). In 2000 I’ve received a scholarship at Fabrica, Benetton’s Research Center for Communication and began working with Oliviero Toscani. In 2001 I’ve started Fotopub Festival of Documentary Photography and served as art-director for seven years. I’ve exhibited worldwide, in venues such as the Konica-Minolta Gallery, Tokio, Japan / K2 Gallery – Izmir, Turkey / Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany/ Host Gallery, London, UK / Kaunas Photo Festival, Lithuania / Doland Museum, Shanghai, China / Photo Fringe Festival, Krakow, Poland and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia. More about my work on www.borutpeterlin.com |
A New Earth Project / vlog#96
In this episode of the vlog, I’ve spend five days in the middle of the woodlands, on the hill with the name Far Away Hill (Daleč hrib), Kočevski rog in Slovenia.
In the following episodes I’ll talk more about the concept and the aesthetic of the project, but in this vlog, I wanted to be simple, focused on the beauty, no spoken words.
But here are few pointers for better understanding of my art. Inspired by the work of Ana Mendieta, I perform sort of rituals in the nature, using my body and 170 year old process called wet plate collodion photography. Huge inspiration is also the book of Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth.
Thank you for your attention, may the Topshit be with you!
If you want to support this channel, here are three options. https://www.patreon.com/borutpeterlin https://www.borutpeterlin.com/shop/
https://www.paypal.me/borutpeterlin
My Youtube channel got hacked!!! / Vlog #95
Catastrophe, my youtube channel got hacked. Hackers left some clues behind and if you recognise somebody in this surveillance footage, let me know!
About friends, alter ego and – oh – some wet plate photography
This vlog is again a photographer’s diary or actually only two topics. Plus some Land Rover maintenance. I hope you’ll find it fun. Let me know if you prefer silver-gelatin print from the negative or ambrotype (wet plate collodion positive). May the topshit be with you!
My website: https://www.borutpeterlin.com/
Workshop calendar: https://www.topshitphotography.com/
How to give me a tip?
https://www.patreon.com/borutpeterlin
https://www.borutpeterlin.com/shop/
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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.
From barbed wired EU border, with love…
Some time ago I’ve made a video about barbed wired EU border (link) and here is another episode from the project. I do not know exactly how will it developed, but I feel the need to document the time and place where I live. I enjoy these expeditions so much. Being away from everyone, from everything doing photography, but not being sure if anybody including myself needs those images. As a professional photographer I’ve developed disfunctionality because photography as a medium is the main source of income and although this is a good thing in the manner I am entitled to devote most of my time to the medium it also creates huge aberration in the process of evaluating the work that I do. This is the aberration I’m mentioning, but I have blind faith that this will pay for my retirement, because social security surely will not.
My next step is to make prints out of the negatives. It will be very different then those digitally converted reproductions, but about that in the next video.
Wet Plate Collodion at -9C, plus carbon print process!
So I’ve received a request if I’m selling also ambrotypes. I don’t because ambrotypes are unique, there is only one and once it’s sold I will never see it again. But I’ve replied that I do sell pre-ordered ambrotype. So when I will go outside next time, I can make an additional ambrotype for a client. If the client likes it, he or she buys it, if not, no problem at all, no questions asked. And pre-ordered ambrotype is also sold for much less I would usually charge.
So here is the result. The client asked if he can buy it in wooden box and so I’ve done some research, I’ve made a boxe from pine-wood and even blast-sanded it. It’s massive wood (not glued wood boards) and pine wood is known for it’s tensions, so it bended. For the next box I’ve chosen cherry wood and this was much better. The final touch is the trophy plate with engraved information about the plate and my signature. How do you like it?
In this video I’m making carbon prints. I love carbon prints. I think it’s the best that photography as a medium can offer. Of course this is a subjective opinion, but please object only if you have seen a good carbon print on glass – in person. It’s translucent silkiness of carbon prints can not be compared with any dot-on-paper principle printing process. It’s unique.
To fund my work I have to sell these babies. The carbon print on paper is listed HERE and the carbon print of glass is listed HERE.
I have a stupid anecdote to share. We had an attempt of burglary in our house. The attempt failed, since I had my German Shepherd – Mike in the house and that convinced the thief to retreat. After that I thought, shit I’m keeping all my savings in a drawer! I must hide it somewhere. And I did. And the very next day I didn’t remembered where I’ve hide it, now I’m totally without any cash whatsoever. Luckily I have some money on my paypal, so I can fill up the gap and pay the bills, but
imagine how stupid do I feel! Plus I searched the whole house again and again, but without success. Anyway I’m telling you this because I do feel stupid and I want to “enjoy” the suffering so much that I will never repeat it again!
Listed on ebay for 7 days!
Listed on ebay for 5 days!
ON THE WET PLATE COLLODION AT -9C
OK, I’ve done three videos on the subject how to do wet plate collodion at cold temperatures and none of them covers the all aspects. It’s impossible to cover all the aspects because everything needs to be reevaluated. Ditch the timer, you don’t need it. For instance in collodion manuals it is usually written that sensibilization time is 3 minutes for ambrotype. The truth is that the sensibilization time varies on the working conditions, the acidity of the silver bath, the strength of silver bath, the freshness of the silver bath, the level of iodine in silver bath and so on. What I learned from Mark Osterman is to evaluate the sensibilization visually. Do this tests and you will appreciate his wisdom.
Sensitizing
- pour the plate and dip it in silver nitrate bath as you usually do.
- after 40 seconds, in safelight conditions, take the silver-plate out and look at it, then immediately dip it back in siverbath.
- repeat after 90 seconds, 120 seconds, 180 seconds
- observe how the surface of the plate is changing. You will notice the following pattern. At the beginning silver will be on the plate in drops, very oily kind of pattern. Then longer it will stay in the silver-bath, collodion will accept more of the silver-nitrate, more smoother the silver will flow on the surface of the plate.
- when there is no more silver drops on the collodion plate, when silver nitrate flows smoothly, the plate is ready to be taken out.
- In some cases, when I had 9% solution, that was freshly boiled and working in temperature of 25C and I was agitating a bit, the sensibilization times were less then a minute! In times when it’s cold, times might be 6 minutes. Of course judging visually!
Pouring collodion
So this is the most important advice I want to give you. Of course take special attention to poured on plate, if collodion has set. Touch the pouring corner and if finger-print is overflown by collodion again, then wait few more seconds and repeat the test and when you can see that the collodion does not flow anymore, then dip it in silver nitrate. You might make a collodion that has solvents in ratio 65% of ether, 35% of alcohol. It will dry faster, but I work with my usual 50:50 ratio. During summer I do change the ratio to 30 ether : 70 alcohol. Plus more ether makes better ambrotypes, more alcohol makes better negatives. (More in the Collodion Manual)
Developing
I can not tell you the time of development, nobody can, you have to judge it visually. Of course if you’re an avid collodion photographer you do this routinely. If you are not, let me say few words. When you pour developer, observe the plate, count seconds loudly. So when the highlight will start to appear, multiply the time with three. So if the highlights are there already at 4 seconds it will be around 12 seconds. If the highlight will start to appear at 10 seconds, the developing time might be more like 30 seconds. OK, when I say highlight, it can be highlight of a face or a sky. Of course sky will appear much faster then a highlight patch on a nose, so take my advice on seconds approximately.
Developer
At freezing point I usually have 10 gr of ferrosulfate in 100 ml of developer. If it’s hot I reduce it down to 3,5 gr.
Heating plates and chemistry
I don’t recommend it. If you do not have a camper with permanent heating, then I don’t recommended. Because the heating will cool down, so you will not have a steady temperature and your results might be all over the place. My advice is that you do not heat up anything, so you will have steady temperature, which might be -5C, but at least when you will figure it out, you will have steady working conditions! The worst is that you get a good result, but then the temperature of your chemistry has dropped and you will have different results and there are so many variables, that it’s very likely you will get many problems. The only heating I recommend is long underwear and double socks.
Freezing water
In the video I forgot to put table salt in my water. One teaspoon of table salt will prevent water from freezing even at -6C. I’m adding salt even during hot temperatures, because salt will react with silver-nitrate and stop developing process immediately, thus clear blacks.
That’s about it! Enjoy making ambrotypes or better ambroice, a term coined by Scott Anton.
About this
Last but not least, I thank you for supporting my videos, blog posts and my work on general. You can do that by becoming my Patreon, bidding on my ebay auctions, buying work from me directly, taking my workshops or even sending me a tip on paypal directly. My paypal address is borutpeterlin and every cup of tea is welcome. As I confessed I developed a habit – being an artist…
Again I’m making an Ebay auction and again I’m listing prints that are by my opinion perfect! I hope you like the making-of-video and if you think it’s worthy don’t forget to subscribe, like and share.
And as always: TOPSHIT HAPPENS!!!
TOPSHIT PHOTOGRAPHY blog 