Studio Q LIVE Show September 25, 2019

The Color of Collodion

Defining Personal Vision In Photography

Photography is to seeing as poetry is to writing.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about personal vision as it applies to photography. 

I think it was Chuck Close that said photography is the most difficult craft to have a distinct, personal vision (paraphrasing). Few truer words have ever been spoken. Photography is ubiquitous, easy to copy or emulate, and influence is incessant. It’s almost impossible to say that you’re doing something original in photography. However, I believe that you can find your vision to say or ask something new within that framework.

John "Nemo" Nemerovski - Whole Plate Alumitype - August 2012For those of you that have read what I’ve written in the past, or have heard a lecture or a talk about my work, you know that I’m a firm believer in context and intention. In other words, if you have context and intention for your work, you’ve started the journey on defining a personal photographic vision or style. 

There are no hard and fast rules, no gospel, if you will, about all of this. It’s simply opinion. Some opinions ring more true or valid than others for me. I believe that if you begin with context and intention, meaning you’ve done the intellectual work for the images, and you’ve found a deep well to draw from, you are well on your way to articulating what’s important, meaningful or serious about your work. Along with that, you’re defining your personal vision. 

When I started making images for my project, “Portraits from Madison Avenue”, I had already explored a lot of the questions that drove the work. What I didn’t realize is that what I was doing was defining why I make photographs, or defining my personal, distinct vision – both aesthetically and intellectually. My work on that project began many, many years ago (1980s). One of the reasons I never fully articulated what the work was about rested in the aesthetics. It was Wet Collodion that gave me the visual building blocks and metaphors to dig deep in the project and fully bring the ideas and aesthetics to the public in a real way.

I had, from the beginning, wanted to achieve four things with my portraiture work. The first thing was to create portraits that were “temporally confusing”. That means photographs that are timeless, or blur the line between historical and contemporary imagery. I wanted to infuse the idea of memory, or my memories and questions, into the images through the aesthetic. The second thing was to create photographs that were “ghostly”, or disturbing and attractive all at once. I wanted the viewer to feel the presence of the sitter in the photograph. The third requirement was to create photographs that had a unique signature through the use of very shallow depth of field, anathema to the 19th Century aesthetic, and unique lighting – a Caravaggio aesthetic – if you will.  And the last item, but not the least in any sense, was the person I photographed. I only photographed people with a unique (sometimes very subtle) look and an interesting story. All of these elements came together with the Wet Collodion process and I pursued it with everything I had. 

It was somewhere between 2005 and 2006, that I first saw work similar to mine begin to appear online. At that time, I was almost finished with the project. I had the first exhibition of the work in March, 2006. People started asking me if it upset me. It did. It wasn’t because I had a copyright on the look and feel I was using, but because I knew the work I was seeing lacked personal (distinct) vision. They hadn’t done their intellectual work; there was no context or intention. They were simply copying an aesthetic to use to make portraits that looked “cool”. This was the beginning of what has turned into hundreds and hundreds of portraits that look like my style; there’s a plethora of photographers making portraits very similar to mine today. Every once in a while I’ll get an email with an attachment asking me about how I made the portrait (attached in the email) and it’s not my photograph. So now, my work gets in the long line of the “Collodion Mug Shots”. And if you don’t take the time to read about my work (my statements) and how I’ve defined my personal vision, I get lost in the shuffle. 

I completely agree with Chuck Close. It's very difficult to define a personal style or vision in photography. If/When you do, I suggest you defend that vision. Make sure people understand that you have context and intention with the work, and that you’ve done the intellectual work. In other words, stand your ground, be proud of what you’ve done. So few can really do it.

The American West Portraits; Hanging

I was very pleased with our trip to Paris to open my show. The photographs were received well, attendance was great and we had a wonderful time. 

We'll go back to close the show in June and do some more teaching, portraits and research for my next body of work. It's all very exciting. Thanks to everyone that helped make this possible. All of the sitters, the gallery, and most of all Jeanne!

These are some images that Fabrice Pejout posted on Facebook. These show the space, you can see why I get excited about my work hanging in this gallery. 

Here's an English article about the exhibition: France Revisited  

All 16"x20" Wet Collodion Positives - raw and real. photo by Fabrice Pejout

The main hallway - but there is a lot more to the catacombs that the images show. photo by Fabrice Pejout

Two 16"x20" Wet Collodion Positive plates. Photo by Fabrice Pejout

Paris 2012

Some press coverage and interviews I've had in Paris so far:

La Lettre de la Photographie

Le Huffington Post

A Short Respite and Satisfaction

Quinn holding three 16" x 20" (40 x 50cm) Ambrotypes. Photos by Jeanne Jacobson

It’s Saturday morning, the sun is shining; I have espresso in my cup and have absolutely nothing on my "to do" list today. I haven’t felt like this for over a year!

For the previous eight months, I've been working seven days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day. I know that’s not healthy, but I had to do it at least for that finite time.

Since Jeanne and I landed at Denver International Airport last June, we’ve been setting up our personal lives, setting up a studio, making photographs, readjusting to America and preparing for the opening of my exhibition in Paris in three weeks. It’s been a long, exhaustive and expensive journey, but I can see the reward coming soon – soon as in less than three weeks – when we board the plane for Paris, France.

Like so many things in my life, I probably wouldn’t have agreed to make this happen had I known what it was going to take. And like so many things in my life, I have no regrets about saying, “Yes, I’ll do it”. Too often, people default to “No, I can’t” to every opportunity that presents itself.  They live with regret and miss out on living life. It’s a lot easier to say, “No”, than to say, “Yes.” It’s easier to be negative than to be positive. Why is that? 

I know it’s trite and cliché, but you have to ask what does “living” mean? I know it’s different for everyone, but the underlying theme is taking chances, taking risks, going where there’s no safety blanket or safety net. Getting out of your comfort zone, getting out there – and I don’t mean that you have to go abroad – it can be as simple as public speaking, changing jobs or quitting your job. Or, in my case, making an international move and then making a new body of work for an exhibition in Paris in six months time. Those things will make you feel alive. An English idiom we use is, “You have skin in the game”. That means you have something to lose or that you’re invested.

Regardless how successful, or not, the show is, I have already experienced something amazing. I arrived in Denver with nothing and in six months time, created a meaningful body of work that I’m proud of and that didn’t exist until I made it. It’s a very satisfying feeling. And to have a gallery in Paris that is excited and supportive means the world to me.  

The plates (glass and metal) are packed in the crate on the left and the photo supplies are in the foot locker on the right. These packages will be sitting in the gallery on Monday!Jeanne and I packed everything up Wednesday night. I had a crate built for the artwork and we used a hard case (large foot locker) for the supplies we need there. The inspiration for the blog was an email I received this morning telling me that the crates cleared customs in Orly, France and will be in the gallery on Monday.

Thank you, Jeanne! You made this happen for me! I love you!