One of my photographs was selected for the 2018 Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition! After several years of solid rejections, I got one in. This is a 14″x18″ print on Ilford Classic 16×20 silver gelatin fiber paper enlarged from an 8×10 film negative in a traditional darkroom. Traditional portraiture with a large format film camera is apparently still a thing.
It’s 2017 and I’m making large format film portraits with a vintage 8×10 camera that is 100 years old. This camera is the Folmer & Schwing 8×10 Home Portrait Camera No. 1 with a 14” Wollensak Velostigmat Series II lens.
Why pursue photography with this combination? Photographs such as this one are made with a “view camera”, a camera where the photographer composes the image upside down and backwards on a ground glass on the back of the camera. View cameras use film that is typically 4″x5″ or larger, thus called large format. Often, images made with these cameras on large format film have a look that cannot be achieved in any other medium. The tonality has a smooth gradation between tones that feels open compared to smaller film formats. Also, vintage lenses designed for 4×5, 5×7, 8×10 or larger have a timeless character that is hard to replicate with modern photographic equipment.
Part of my artistic vision is to create photographs that are not easily identified with any particular period. Sometimes clothing or hairstyle gives it away, but other times it’s hard to tell whether a photograph is contemporary or made anytime back to 1928.
This portrait of a woman was made on Arista EDU Ultra 100 black and white film and drum processed for 9 minutes in Freestyle’s L110 developer at dilution H 1+62.
On occasion, I make Van Dyke Brown historic process prints using a technique that dates back to the mid 1800’s. What is an alt process, or historic process print? The short answer is a print made by putting a negative directly in contact with art paper that has been sensitized to record an image. A “standard” silver gelatin black and white print is made with photographic paper available from a commercial manufacturer. To make an alt process print, the photographer brushes the light sensitive chemicals onto the paper that has been selected for the print. After the paper is dry, the negative is pressed against the paper using a contact printing frame. Then, the paper and negative are exposed to UV light, either using the sun or a light box outfitted with bulbs that will expose print-out papers.
There are many different alternative processes and excellent books on the subject. My expertise is the Van Dyke Brown and I use 4×5 or 8×10 film or digital negatives. This portrait was made using 8×10 black and white film. You can see the brush strokes where the sensitizer was brushed onto the paper and the full border of the negative. Some people display their prints with the full border visible. Others cover the film border with a mat, showing only the image area. Although I like the brush strokes, I’d like to find some old-fashioned, cabinet card style oval mats to augment the turn-of-the-last-century style.
Last week, I had the good fortune to exhibit two pieces in the SLP FOTA exhibit. I grew up in SLP so it was nice to have something in the show. Two other photographers in our Midwest Passage photography group had work in the show as well. My images were from the series that I have been doing on the flooded golf course just a few blocks from my house. The flood created a wetland bayou, disrupting a carefully manicured and managed area. The future is still uncertain for this area because the flood devastated the course.
Blowdown was taken with an 8×10 film camera. I couldn’t get over the way nature had claimed this path between the fairway and the green. Shortly after I made this image, the groundskeepers started repairing the path and this composition was wiped away. Like so many good subjects, this was only available to see for a short time and now it will never be seen again other than in photographs. Lugging 30 pounds of gear to this spot and lingering in the stench of the bog was worth it.
Meadowbrook Bayou was photographed with a medium format film camera early in the course of the flood. I marveled at how nature took this land back, if even for a short time.
What! A new online magazine with a focus on film photography? It can’t be! But it is! Check out the first issue of Looking Glass Magazine, published by a team of photographers dedicated to keeping film-based work alive and thriving.
But wait, there’s more! They asked me to contribute an article on Pinhole Photography and some photographs and do you know what I said? I said “of course!”. The magazine showcases several photographers, has compelling images and photo-related prose. There’s a great story about a pilgrimage gone wrong trying to find the location that Ansel Adams used for a famous photograph. If you’re into film or photography in general, there’s something here for you. Did I mention pinhole photography? I did? Support film photography and subscribe!
…pinhole.