Monday, July 11, 2016 at 15:32 Great news! This is Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta paper, a NEW potential paper for making Collodion Chloride prints! This is the first run, but very promising!
Tuesday, November 4, 2014 at 9:44 Tuesday, April 1, 2014 at 7:08 I'm starting this series of videos on the technical, conceptual, and philisophical topics in historic photographic processes. I'm going to start with the wet collodion process and move on from there.
If you'd like, you can subscribe to the series (on YouTube) and you'll be informed when I post new videos. Moreover, ask a question or make a comment. I'm going to address the more frequently asked questions in the beginnning and also make commentary on your commentary - it should be fun and interesting!
You can SUBSCRIBE to my YouTube Channel here:
Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 10:17
Next month, on May 1, the exhibition, “In Honour of Archer” will open in London. There will be close to thirty 
Frederick Scott Archer, 1813 - 1857pieces of artwork in the show. All of the work is Collodion or Collodion-based from artists all over the world working in the Collodion process. I can’t over emphasize the importance of this exhibit and event. Not only for today, moreover, for posterity.
Every once in a while, there’s an opportunity to contribute and be involved in something that will be far more important in the future than it is today. The problem is being able to recognize those opportunities and then having the chutzpah to make the sacrifices to get “some skin in the game”.
“In Honour of Archer”, is one of those opportunities that I can say with great confidence, will take its place in history. It’s bigger than all of us. It’s its own thing, like a mountain so high that it generates its own weather system. It has its own energy, we’re just trying to keep up.
The work presented in the show will have a certain gravitas, too. A provenance, if you will. In this case, the context of the work is much greater than the work itself. I don’t mean that in the pejorative, I really like the work that has been submitted, I mean that in the way that this isn’t “just another exhibition”. I mean that the photographs in this exhibition are forever connected to this event. It’s the connection that gives this purpose – that’s what makes this so important. I wonder if people get that.
A hundred years from now, no one will know or care what you or I did today. We may see what we’re doing in our daily lives as important, but no one will remember. No one will care. John Popper, from the Blues Traveler band, has a great lyric in a song called, “100 Years”. It sums up the ephemeral nature of our day-to-day existence. He says,
“Big angry man in the doorway there
Just keep on walking like I don't care
Why you giving such an evil eye
Could it be you were ignored by every passerby
And it won't mean a thing in a hundred years
No, it won't mean a thing in a hundred years”
Our death denial illusions are exposed and open for God and the world to see them when we talk about our achievements for future generations. However, in my opinion, this event transcends those illusions. This is one of those things that we all know is the right thing to do. So why has it taken 157 years?
I feel neither allegiance nor indebtedness to anyone except Archer when it comes to the Wet Plate Collodion process. Without Archer, and some others in the 19th Century, Collodion would have been a shelved process, at least as far as we know it today. He’s never received the recognition or the proper acknowledgments from his country, the big photography museums or the academic establishments. They should be embarrassed and ashamed. I'm glad, however, that we, the Collodion Collective, were able to come together and make his commemoration what it should be.
Unfortunately, as Parker and Stone said, "Sometimes what's right isn't as important as what's profitable." In that context, this is not, “just another exhibition”.
Thank you to everyone that participated in any way – you’ve done a great thing!
Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 1:50 If there's one constant in life and art, it's change. And I'm learning to embrace it.
After some serious soul searching, I've come to the conclusion that my work falls under one main idea - one thought - “the other”. I can't distinguish any longer between a portrait of a mentally challenged trash man in Utah or an image of a smokestack next to a (former) concentration camp in Germany. The theme and ideas are the same to me now.
To my mind, my work is about difference (I often refer to this as, "the other") and memory. It's an investigation about how we see each other and what that means in our daily lives. The memory is both personal and universal - do we learn anything from the past, or is it something we ignore and/or deny? I want my work to question self-consciousness, too. I request that the viewer think about themselves from the inside out, not outside in - a unexamined life...
I heard a comment about the words, "equal" and "the same", last night on the radio. It was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, so it was a good time to reflect on equality, difference, and sameness.
I came to realize that I don't want everyone to be the same, but I want equality. In a perfect world, we would all be equal (rights, respect, etc.) and we would embrace one another's differences. That's in a perfect world. I suppose that's what I try to do. In a circuitous way, I try to celebrate the differences between us. I enjoy a unique face as much, or more, than a "beautiful" face, etc. etc.
I am infinitely infatuated with difference (in a good way). I think I equate difference/uniqueness with awareness somehow. I don't mean that in the sense of trends or fads, but in the sense of being who you are, fully aware of that (internally) and letting the world deal with it - not the other way around.
Excerpt from 1:1's website - "War Damage".
That brings me to the intent of my blog; a Spanish online magazine called, "1:1Foto Magazine" out of Madrid has featured some of my work in this issue. You can see it here or click on the image to go to the site. They are a great group of people and actually understand what I'm doing and have done. Muchas gracias!
I'm very happy to be making work, thinking, dreaming and living more as an artist now. I will continue to work toward being more self-aware and not being disconcerted about being who I am. And I'll continue to make work in that context with the hope of teaching myself, and others, tolerance.
Thomas Huxley said, "Try to learn something about everything and everything about something."
