This image was made on Fomapan 200 film with a Fujinon-L 420mm ƒ/8 lens on a gorgeous Tachihara 8 x 10 field camera . The mannequin was lit using a Canon 580EXII speedlite connected via PC-sync cable to the Fujinon lens diffused through a 24″ softbox bounced with an adjacent reflector.

Due to my transient lifestyle as a merchant seaman and all-round vagrant I have no darkroom nor access to one, meaning that inside a Harrison XL Darktent the film was loaded into a CL81 processing reel (from CatLABS) which was put into a light-tight JOBO tank and developed with hand agitation/rolling in R09/Adonal at a dilution of 1:50 for 10 minutes. The negative was scanned on an Epson V700 flatbed scanner and some dodging, burning and curve adjustments were made in Photoshop to accentuate the highlights of the figure and make it stand out from the dreamy darkness of the forest behind it.

The format used was chosen out of preference and ergonomics. Since the 8 x 10 camera has come into my fold it has been used almost exclusively. I find it incredibly comfortable, an absolute joy to use and much easier to compose with than smaller 4 x 5 cameras.

I prefer lenses of tighter focal lengths, straying away from wide-angle lenses when I can which is greatly in contrast to how I used to shoot with digital cameras. I’ve learned that longer focal lengths can be used just as much for landscape as they can for tighter portrait-style shots. Truly great all-rounders with honesty in rendering of physical objects and useful in subject isolation. Although in my 8 x 10 and 4 x 5 kits I do have wide angle lenses, these see little use.

I chose Fomapan 200 out of sheer economy due to the cost of 8 x 10 film and my being relatively new to the format. It is worth noting that I find the Foma film does not agree with the CL81 processing reel as it becomes very badly scratched on both long sides of the negative during insertion and removal. This results in a small crop factor of the negative during post processing. Whether this is due to the supposedly weak Foma emulsion I have no idea. I have not yet developed other film stocks in this reel.

I must admit that I feel I am selling myself short in image-making with film by not physically wet-printing my negatives. I have no formal education or experience in photography or darkrooms and have come purely from hobbyist roots with perhaps 5 years total of phototaking under my belt, the last 3 of those years being with film.

After renowned “picture maker” Maris Rusis invited me to his home and gave me a tour of his incredible darkroom, workspace, philosophy and astounding archive of decades of workmanship, I later began to deeply question my intention and direction with photography and really felt that I have been missing out on half the fun of the craft, and indeed only doing half the job.

I feel that the lack of having a truly completed tangible experience from exposure to print is almost cheating myself. As a result, over the last year-and-a-half I have been whittling away my time at sea deeply immersed in studying historical image making and alternative printing methods which I intend to put into practice when I set foot on land again after having spent 9 of the last 12 months at sea. Over the last couple of years I have become all but completely disenchanted with the greater world of consumer photography and digital clichés, although admittedly this could well just be from spending too much time looking at photos as opposed to making them.

Photography for me is purely (frustrating) relaxation, escapism and engaging in longed-for solitude. As countless photographers have said before me; it’s my meditation. In my line of work I spend months on end with a small group of people in a micro-community confined to a little orange tin can bobbing around the Southern Ocean in crowded isolation, and finding the time to enjoy one’s own company is relished wherever possible. I rarely photograph people nor photograph in the company of others. I have found the often-spoke-of ‘Zen’ that comes underneath a darkcloth an enormous change of pace from my natural tendency to rush just about everything else I do, and this requires no human distraction. The first time I experienced this ‘Zen’ I realised how long it had actually been since I really slowed down, or had I ever really at all?

This truly brings me back into the moment… and then time becomes meaningless. No more schedule. No need to keep an eye on the clock. No roster to follow. My job means I live by the minute 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for months on end with no escape and not a single days rest, all the while just wishing the time away, looking forward to the time I’ll soon have to view the world from under a dark piece of cloth through a frosted piece of glass… on my own time.

Many friends have asked and encouraged me to take more photos of my workplace and the things I see or do but honestly it is a place I’m not entirely ‘in’. I spend months in the Antarctic on Australia’s research flagship and come home with very few photos purely because I am not able to fully immerse myself in the photo-making mindset. Always on a timeframe, always tired, always on watch, lapping up whatever precious hours of rest come my way. To be absolutely satisfied I have made a worthwhile image I have to give it all of my attention and make it the absolute priority of that moment and not try and fit it into somebody else’s agenda or schedule.

I stay away from hidden themes or narrative and either make a photo as I see it before me or materialised from an idea I have in my mind that exists solely as a daydream, such as the image above. In my photos you won’t find any social commentary or underlying subliminal messages. I can be quite opinionated in person so it is probably refreshing to not have me trying to jam ideas down your throat in my photography.

The above image is the epitaph for one of my happiest photo-making experiences; all alone in the middle of a forest with a cool, light Tasmanian Spring rain falling through the canopy of the pines, relaxing music softly playing from the stereo in my van and all the time in the world at my disposal. No rush. No mess. No fuss. I think the end result is the perfect consummation of that moment.

Alex Gard

Lines of Love

My first nudes with large format cameras were very slow affairs.  Painting my friends bodies with a light grey body paint all over and only a couple of poses of them together. Limited by only a few sheets of film I was cautious. I found the pose when I asked them to hold each other in their favourite cuddling position. I became interested in the line between the two bodies. “Lines of Love” was the first image that I felt was resolved enough to publish. Taken with studio lights in the back room of my house in Mount Victoria. The concept needs further exploration, and is something I will get back too.

Flannel Flowers

It wasn’t long before I found a model who was willing to work with me in the landscape. Naked landscapes has become one of my favourite genres. I like to explore our relationship with nature. The connection we have with it. I believe it provides us with spiritual peace. Mother Nature or as Lovelock eloquently put it when he viewed the earth from his orbiting capsule Gaia. 

I have been lucky enough to befriend an older male model, and we have worked together for years. Figuring out technique and form. How to integrate the figure into the landscape. It has been this continual practice that has taught me how to sculpt the figure into pleasing and meaningful form. The male figure is so difficult to pose. Working this way has taught me valuable lessons in technique.

Lakeside sculpture

On some days my technique is simple. The model and I wander the bush looking for interesting shapes and forms. Something I can add the figure into. Once I frame up the shot, with my camera I show the model the shot on the ground glass, and I describe the dominating forms I wish the model to play to with their body.  We will try many poses until I find that magical connection between the figure and the landscape, between the two forms. I try to get them into poses that are supported rather than free standing. This helps with the long exposures and keeping them still. Sometimes a little tiding up of the figures’ form is needed before they are asked to stop breathing and hold still for the photo. I count them into the shot. And let them know when the exposure is complete. I only take one shot at each location and move on looking for something else to work with.

Stone

I try to make the figure look as majestically beautiful as I can. I bend and stretch them to pull wrinkles out, to hide rolls and other bits we really don’t want to be looking at. Now after working with a wide variety of figures I find great joy in finding the beauty in all sorts of people.

With black and white film I like to work with a light orange filter. I have the same one that also screws onto the front of my spot meter, so there is no worrying about filter factors. The orange filter hides blemishes, such as pimples and red marks. It lightens the skin and darkens the greens. It just adds a lovely touch of contrast to the mix.  They were standard in a portrait photographers kit.

Son

One of my favourite genres with my ‘Naked Landscapes’ is a tiny figure almost hidden in the majesty of Mother Nature. I like the figure to feel like it belongs there. As if they are recharging themselves through their connection with nature.  I like them to be discovered by the viewer. Many of these need to be viewed at their printed size to fully comprehend the joy of discovery. Print size is a very important issue for us fine art large format photographers. Many of us take images that are designed to be viewed at a large scale, images that often struggle in smaller prints or on the web.

Figures and stone is another beautiful combination. Again I look for patterns and shapes that can be reinforced and added to with the human form. Copying curves and round boulders with the figure. With this genre I can get closer and fill the frame with the figure. This allows me to concentrate on their form.

Arches

Lately I have been working more with the light within overhangs, using the dark blackness of them to contrast the soft figures in the foreground. Cave light some affectionately know it by. That gentle soft light within an overhang or under a veranda on sunny day, or even better on a wet day.  Personally I love soft light, I love the way it curves around the figure with a gentleness and a softness that helps give a lovely three dimensional feel to the figures.  I fell in love with soft light while working with slide films such as Velvia in the landscape. Regardless of the film it is still my favourite light.

I have only been lucky enough a few times to work with a model in the mist, rain and sleet.  Unfortunately the cold that usually accompanies these beautiful conditions isn’t too the best for the poor model.

Working with the figure has taught me to collaborate with the model and the landscape.  This collaboration reinforces our connection. I have stopped trying to previsulaize my work before the shoot. Preferring to turn up, and see what happens. What landscapes appeal to me on the day or which poses suit our mood.

Leonard Metcalf has been infatuated with large format photography since George Schwartz showed him one at City Art Institute in 1986. Fifteen years of wandering the Blue Mountains with various 4 × 5 cameras not only gave him a solid portfolio of wilderness images it lead him to his current passion of teaching & mentoring photographers in workshops and tours.

More of his work can be seen at his website. Leonard is the founder of Len’s School and more of his writing can be read at a blog Visions for the Real World.

Inkjet print

This photo was taken in November on an early season visit to the Antarctic Peninsula. I had previously been to Cuverville Island in January and this time I was interested to see this landscape with more snow cover. The gentoo penguins had not long arrived and were waiting for the snow to melt so that they could start nest building on bare rocky ground. It is difficult to visit this part of Antarctica in winter so I was partly drawn to this view because the moody overcast weather on this day evoked a scene reminiscent of the colder months of the year.

The image was taken with a Horseman 45FA camera with a 180mm lens. The film was 120 Fuji Velvia shot on a 6 x 12 roll back, scanned, and converted to black & white in Photoshop. On my early Antarctic trips I also took black & white film but found there was often not enough time to use both colour and black & white and just having one film stock was much more manageable. (Often there are significant time constraints on photographing in Antarctica because one is relying on other people for transport.) I found the 6 x 12 format very suitable for portraying the expansive Antarctic landscape and eventually used this format almost exclusively. The most recent print I have made of this image was printed on Canson platen fibre rag on an Epson 7900. The size was 870 mm x 510 mm.

I took this photo on the fifth of six photographic trips I made to Antarctica. For two of these trips in 1990 and 2004 I received an Antarctic Arts Fellowship and on both occasions was fortunate to spend a full summer at Mawson Station in East Antarctica. Three of the other trips involved chartering a yacht from Ushuaia in southern Argentina and sailing to the Antarctic Peninsula and to South Georgia. My final visit in 2009 was to the Ross Sea. In 2012 a selection of my Antarctic images was published in the book Southern Light: Images from Antarctica.

David Neilson

Review of Southern Light: Images from Antarctica

David is also author of ‘Wilsons Promontory: Coastal Wildness and Patagonia: Images of a Wild Land’.

Silver Gelatin Photograph

I very much come from the ‘fine print’ tradition. I am interested in rich detailed full toned prints, using 4 x 5 gives me all the leverage I need to achieve this. Using sheet film and large format cameras very much distances me from the scene in such a way as I can study the composition and lighting very carefully, even returning to the scene if the light wasn’t right at the first visit before pulling the dark slide out and tripping the shutter. My process of course requires extensive ‘scouting’ of locations before I even get my camera out, any mapping application on a computer is useful here.

This image is entitled ‘Glen Iris’. It forms a part of larger body of work that explores the idea of bridges, both as a personal metaphor and cultural construct. I have exhibited this image as part of an exhibition of urban landscapes I had been working on for many years. I began this series using my Linhof Technika, in the mid 1990s. At the time black and white film was the most cost effective way of making work, particularly with 4 x 5 sheet film, so I continue to use it to this day. I currently use a Cambo 4 x 5 and 210mm Rodenstock Sironar N lens, with a Copal 1 shutter. Other tools include a Pentax Spotmeter, and of course a tripod. I like the 210mm focal length as it renders the scenes I point it really beautifully, and to be honest I can’t afford to buy anything else.

I have used Kodak T-Max 400 now for most of my photographic career and it is a film I know and appreciate. I choose to use 4 x 5 for its ability to capture detail and for the way it makes you work slowly and deliberately.

One version was printed it at Victorian College of the Arts C lab as an inkjet print measuring 95 x 80 cms, as I wanted this biggest print I could get, to really exploit the detail the large negative captured, and it formed part of an exhibition of similar sized prints.

For many years I have used a film developer I make myself called D25, from a recipe shared with me at college by one of my teachers. I like the combination of tonality and fine grain that T-max emulsion gives me combined with D25.

I have also printed Glen Iris as a silver gelatin print about 20 x 24. However, I have yet to exhibit the silver gelatin print. My prints usually are not this big anymore, as the tactile nature of the process makes working with large sheets of paper very taxing, physically and mentally. I prefer silver gelatin printing as this is being true to the medium I feel. Unless I want prints larger than 20 x 24 these days all my work is printed as silver gelatin prints, in varying sizes. I enjoy the tonal qualities that silver gelatin offers and using a mixed bag of papers and paper developers allows me subtle control over the final images tonality and spatial relationships.

I make a contact print of each negative as I work, then revisit my archive at irregular intervals to see if I can make work that sits together for exhibitions or other output methods. Having complete control over all aspects of the finished print is paramount for me and I often work these prints through a series of stages as I finish them off.  I enlarge my negatives using an Omega chassis, with a Zone VI cold light diffusion light source. My favourite paper developer is a variation of Ansco 120. Printing is more of a past time now than a means to an end, so time in the darkroom are always quiet and reflective, a continuation of the process of using the camera almost.

Stuart Murdoch

Silver gelatin photograph

In September 2014 I left on a road trip to Broken Hill and its surrounding area in western New South Wales. I had wanted to visit the Australian outback for many years; this was my first journey beyond Dubbo. We packed up the car for a quick five day trip of sun up until heat stroke photography, and after a little snooze, continuing photographing on into the evening. I experienced part of Australia very different to my life in Sydney, a community a little less influenced by the rest of the world and the trends of metro areas.

This image was made on the shores of Lake Menindee, about 100km south east of Broken Hill. It’s a popular destination and there are many manipulated images on the net with unrealistic colours and mirrored reflections. My approach to photography is simple, to photograph a place exactly as I find it, and to reproduce it in a detailed and realistic way.

Bulldozer tracks marked the sand and many trees had been reduced to a pile of sticks. This is what I found, and so this is what I photographed. Human intervention in the environment appears in almost all my photographs, my photographs are built on elements that would often be cropped out to present an untouched landscape.

While my subjects are often not beautiful, and perhaps not even particularly interesting to the casual observer, I aim to find form in the scene, and through that, create a meaningful and beautiful image. I design my images upon the geometric elements, emphasising the footprint of society.

I used my standard set up to make this photograph, and I rarely use anything else – an Arca Swiss F Metric 4 x 5 camera with 110mm Schneider Super Symmar XL. The Arca is a light weight and reasonably compact monorail camera, it offers the precision of a geared metal camera, with portability similar to a folding camera. The 110mm lens fits the field of view I like to use, and it probably accounts for 90% of my images made on 4 x 5. I print at the Think Negative dark room Marrickville on Ilford fibre based paper.

I will be exhibiting this image during the Head On photography festival as part of my show ‘The Line of Lode’, at Think Negative in May 2015.

Geoffrey Roberts

During November 2014, I travelled to Death Valley to participate in a large format meet up. On the agenda was an early morning shoot at Zabriskie Point: this has its own problems.

We arrived in the twilight before dawn and found the large car park almost full. Much of the lookout was staked out by a digital photography hoi polloi waiting for alpenglow to appear on the Panamint Range across the valley.

Being freethinking large format photographers, we descended just beneath Zabriskie Point to a small mesa away from the masses, and started to set up. In retrospect, it could have been a Foucauldian moment presencing itself from his trip here in the not so distant past. Instead of the sound of Kontakte calling across the emptiness, there was a man dressed in black neoprene yelling – THINK AGAIN.

It was unlikely we would have interfered in his, or anyone else’s photographs, unless they were using an 8mm fish eye lens. Making room near them at the lookout, I took a few colour photos of alpenglow, followed by the first sun striking Manly Beacon, but became rapidly bored and needed more involvement in the landscape.

Thinking again, I headed beneath the wall at Zabrinskie Point and started to take a series of photographs of the badlands to the southeast, where the Amargosa Range starts to descend from its high ramparts.

I turned my attention to a series of formations where colours range from deep dark browns, to soft yellow ochres, and whites. About a month before leaving Australia, most of my photography kit had been stolen so I was working with newly acquired lenses, a new Chamonix 045FI View Camera, tripod and other gear. I had not been able to replace my spot meter, and was measuring using an app on my iPhone. I find that metering with the phone is often perfectly adequate, provided judgments are made on Zone placement.

For this photograph I used a Goerz Dagor 10 ¾ inch lens that had arrived the day before leaving for California. The shutter had been tested prior to purchase and is more accurate at slower than faster speeds. Keeping the shutter set on 1/10 of a second, I made adjustments to the aperture as the light changed, taking this photograph at f.22.

This image was made on Kodak TMax 100, and developed when I returned to Australia in a mix of Xtol and Adonal (RO9). Generally, I use Xtol at a dilution of 1:2, and add Adonal into the mix at 1.25 mls per 4 x 5 sheet, and develop using Xtol times. If necessary, I will contract or expand development times. After some experimentation, I regularly use this mix as it retains fine grain, but has deeper tones and good contrast. As I use a hybrid process, scanning the negative to produce a digital image, I find that this combination of film and development process works for me. Once the image is scanned I make minor tonal adjustments and clone for dust and/or scratches. If, in the future I have access to a darkroom for printing, I hope that this image will make a fine print.

Peter de Graaff

Peter’s Flickr photostream

Our 50th “The Photograph Explained”.

We started this series on 23 September 2013 with Ellie Young’s piece. We’re pleased to say we’ve now published our fiftieth article.

We estimate there are around two hundred people using large format cameras in Australia. To get these fifty articles we contacted over one hundred photographers.

It’s been an extremely interesting process; we’ve so far had photographers from every state and territory using film sizes 4 x 5, 5 x 7, 11 x 14, 12 x 20 and 16 x 20. We’ve had albumen, platinum palladium, daguerreotype, wet plate collodion tintype, inkjet, ziatype, lith, new chrysotype, chromogenic, silver gelatin and salt prints.

We’re still keen to get more articles, so if you’re been contacted and didn’t at the time want to write one, please get in contact. If you know of someone we should ask, let us know.

We are now asking anyone who has done an article to think about doing another one. We want to keep the series going so please help us.

We’ve had two international photographers in our series so far; we’d like to know who in the world would you like us to ask to write an article.

Thank you to those fifty photographers who have written articles and thank you for reading them.

You can view the previous articles here.

– David Tatnall & Alastair Moore

Silver gelatin contact print

For about six years now, since I moved to Melbourne, I’ve been making images with my 8 x 10 field camera of people I know in their back gardens, doing whatever it is they do there. Coming from New York, where back gardens don’t really exist in the same way they do here, I was struck by the unique social space of the back garden in Australia: the ways in which we use them, what we do in them, what we can do in them that we don’t do anywhere else, the daily routines, the family life, the accumulation of objects, debris, wildness or domesticity that occur in these private, hidden, “natural” spaces.

Using an 8 x 10 camera for these environmental portraits is integral to the feeling that I’m after in the final images. I also use a DSLR in my daily work, and I’ve found that people respond very differently to a view camera in their private space than to a handheld camera. The need for stillness during a longer exposure and the slow process of focusing and preparing the camera seem to contribute to an atmosphere of ritual and ceremony. This can paradoxically lead to a more “authentic” expression of the subject’s self, or at least it seems to allow a different type of persona from the subject’s usual quotidian performances of self to emerge.

Also, at the all-important moment of exposure, I’m standing in full view next to the camera rather than hidden behind a lens. This allows the sitter and I to connect with each other directly. The quality that this arrangement can bring to the images is the crucial element that keeps me working with large format cameras, even though costs are soaring and film is getting harder to get my hands on.

I’ve been using the same Tachihara cherry-wood field camera since I was 15, and an antique uncoated 300mm Schneider lens that my mother (also a photographer) passed on to me when she stopped using big cameras. Now, 20 years later, this particular combination of equipment feels like a natural extension of my mind and hands when I’m under the dark-cloth, and I can’t imagine switching to anything else. It’s a beautiful experience to let my mind go blank and to stop thinking for a few moments while I’m focusing and framing, and to quietly find the right setup as if it were a sort of meditation. I find this flow much more intuitive and even physical than the cerebral experience of shooting portraits with a DSLR, which for me is often accompanied by a lot of calculating and sometimes not-so-clear thinking.

I took this particular shot of my friend Curt and my partner Daniel in the early evening, as they were finishing up a day of deck construction in the garden behind Curt’s café. I only had one piece of film with me at the time, so I let them keep working while I set up in a corner, and then asked them at the last moment to turn and face the camera. It’s always a question for me as to how much I should direct the subject into a certain position, and how much I should allow them to stay engaged in their activity and wait for the right moment to press the shutter release. If there’s not much ambient light, as was the case in this situation, then I usually ask them to stand still and do a more formal portrait, in order to minimise movement and the potential for blurring.

After a full day of physical labour, the moment of stillness afforded by the long exposure (1/2 sec) seems to have allowed a certain clarity in the two men’s faces; they were very present and open. The whole shoot was over in less than a minute, which is probably the quickest large format session I’ve ever done, and they went back to their packing up.

This negative was shot on FP4+ film, and printed with a contact frame on Ilford warm tone fibre paper with a two-bath development process. I toned it with selenium to deepen the blacks. Now that I have a toddler and another baby on the way, I have decided to take a break from working with all the chemicals of the traditional darkroom, and have begun printing an exhibition of the back garden series on an ink-jet printer. However, the 8 x 10 silver gelatin contact print will probably always remain my favourite final print of these negatives. The incredible detail and sharpness of a contact print, as well as the smaller image size, has the potential to draw the viewer in very close as they inspect the faces and textures. It allows them to enter into the world of the photo intimately, by themselves, as if peering at it through a window.

Portrait of Daisy Noyes by Sandy Noyes

Daisy Noyes

It seemed worthy to post up a little announcement and to show off all the previous editions so our readers can see the diversity of photographs submitted by an incredibly talented group of photographers.

Thanks must go to David Tatnall who has worked extremely hard over the years to seek out and pester photographers to provide the images and text that you’ve enjoyed reading. And, of course, massive thanks must also go out to the photographers who have provided these beautiful images and explaining the thoughts and processes they’ve gone through to make these photographs.

We’ll continue to run the series, as The Photograph Explained is one of the more popular posts on the site, although perhaps not quite as regularly as we have been doing! Now we’re up to edition 50, David will enjoy the break, I’m sure!

We would love to know what your favourite image is, and why, and what images stood out to you! Leave a comment below, we’ll look forward to reading your thoughts!

In other news, the site is currently being refreshed with a new look and that should come to life in the next couple of weeks.

But in the meantime, leave comments below, share these images on the usual social networks! I think everyone who has provided an image should be very proud of what you’ve created and the more people that see your work, the better!

1. Time – Albumen Photograph by Ellie Young	2. Boorara State Forest by John Austin	3. Five Minutes at Mungana by Gordon Undy
4. Mount Agony by Bob Kersey	5. Autumn, West Coast Range by Rob Blakers	6. Sandbird by Chris Bell
7. Magnificence by Steve Tester	8. Robe by David Roberts	9. Hyden Rock by Alex Bond
10. Ice Ghoul Daguerreotype By Joyce Campbell	11. Reflection, Crimson Wall by Mark Darragh	12. Silence for Water Well by Sonia Macak
13. Hanging in the Balance and Flemington Post Office by Lloyd Shield	14. Rock Cave by Julian Pearce	15. Dignity by Kate Baker
16. Pier, Glenorchy, New Zealand by Richard White	17. Trentham Falls by Ian Raabe	18. Ngaio Mala By Craig Tuffin
19. The edge #2, Govetts Leap by Ian Brown	20. Cloud & Playa, Lake Eyre by Mike Stacey	21. Untitled, 2013 by Enrico Scotece
22. Faces in the Canyon, The Greater Blue Mountain World Heritage Area by Leonard Metcalf	23. Avenida General Flores, Uruguay by Rebecca Fagan	24. “a technological oasis in an ancient landscape” by Rowan Conroy
25. Tenby Point Mangroves by Shane Booth	26. Woolshed Falls, Beechworth by Alastair Moore	27. Rock platform, Middle Head, Sydney by Philip Ramsden
28. “Authorised persons only”: Mayday Hills Asylum, Beechworth by Wendy Watson	29. A creek in the Lamington National Park by Mick Lord	30. Dip Falls #3, Tasmania by John Studholme
31. Lone Tree by Nic Daley	32. Mulgrave River, North Queensland by Gary Chapman	33. Waratah 2 by Lynette Zeeng
34. Pinhead Pluto By Kate Robertson	35. Boy in Yarra River by Thomas Breakwell	36. Portraits at Wylies Baths, Sydney by Peter Elliston
37. Jökulsárlón by Marc Morel	38. Snow Gums and Stone, Porcupine Track by Maris Rusis	39. Forest at Crows Foot Track by David Tatnall
40. Two Tall Trees, Mollymook by Stacy Arezou Mehrfar	41. Ross and Palm, San Diego by Amanda Tomlin	42. Blushing Drape by Leanne McPhee
43. “Nest: Croajingolong Dreaming” by Malcolm Gamble	44. Rock pool and Dolphin Point By Zigi Georges	45. Cone Crusher by Leigh Lambert
46. Untitled 2011 by DM Witman	47. Upper Lansdowne River by Mark O’Neill	48. Angkor Wat by Robert James Elliott
49. “Untitled” by Andrew Dearman

‘Untitled’ B/W Wet Plate Collodion on Glass, 6.5 x 4.25 inches.

Wet Plate Collodion on Glass

I’ve become obsessed by the Wet Plate Process over the last few years—a 19^th century process in which the image is hand made on a sheet of clear glass or on blackened metal.  The main reason for my interest is that the process requires attention to detail in order to get the required effects, along with a lot of chance. There are so many variables that one can’t always take account for, and so it’s a process where there is a good amount of controlled chaos at play.  As with many forms of photography, the frustrations are a many, and so when it works, it works beautifully.

For me, a successful glass plate is one with a good range of tone, and enough of the curious anomalies that the 19^th century photographers who used the process would have considered as the marker of a failure, but which many contemporary practitioners tend to like.  Such anomalies, like the empty black space in one corner where the glass plate is held, or the murkiness caused by an uneven pour of the emulsion or the developer, are the signature tell-tale hallmarks of the process.  Too many anomalies distract from the content of the image, however a few of these, and an interesting composition, make for a successful plate.  The end result is one where it is both a photographic image as well as an object.  The object nature of a photograph is of special interest to me.

I guess that I’m one of those annoying photographers who doesn’t really identify as a photographer.  My background as a sculptor causes me to consider myself as a ‘maker of stuff’ rather than as someone who self-locates to a specific discipline.  Sometimes I feel like a bit of a fraud for not thinking of myself explicitly as a photographer, however such a fluid self-conception allows me a certain agency—from which I believe my current practice is derived.  When I learnt how to use wet plate process (which in my case consists of ‘ambrotypes’ because I use clear glass), I realised that the nature of the process and my specific interests meant that I had to build a mobile dark room, more formally known as a ‘darkbox’.  This is where my background as a sculptor—a maker of contraptions—came into play.

‘Wet Plate’ means that the image needs to be developed before it dries.  The plate is coated and sensitised inside a darkbox (or more usually a dark room) before being put into a plate holder, which is then put into the camera.  After the exposure, it needs to be developed straight away.  When I built the darkbox I didn’t have much in the way of a large format camera, however I had heard of what we call in the West, an ‘Afghan Camera’, an old camera/darkbox design from the early days of photography, which is still in use in the Middle East and other places such as Cuba.  I made use of this basic design.  Because an Afghan Camera uses a paper negative, which is then re-photographed to produce a positive, the user isn’t necessarily constrained by the sizes of conventional formats.  The size of the image depends on the size of the box and how big the piece of paper—or in my case, sheet of glass—is.  The working structure of the Afghan Camera design and its potential portability made it perfect for my needs.

The camera/darkbox that I built can use a range of different lenses, however the one that I tend to use a lot is an f4 Grubb made in Ireland in the 1860s.  Made over the course of seven months, it can be used in the studio, taking and then processing an image, or it can be taken out into the field.  It can also be used as a stand-alone dark box.  As a cart, it can only travel so far, but for living in a city surrounded by parks, I’m not left for want of possibilities.  In more recent months, I have purchased a beautiful full plate field camera made in British India in c1910.  While it is designed to take ‘full plate’ (6.5 x 8.5 inches), I made a half plate adaptor out of cardboard and sticky tape that can be inserted into the plate holder.  The lens that I usually use is an f8 Busch Rapid Symmetrical, also probably from c1910.

There’s an old olive grove down the end of the street that my studio is on, and for some reason this is where I’ve managed to make most of the plates that I’m happiest with.  The lines, shapes, and shadows within the trees, especially when the late afternoon light comes in sideways, make for interesting compositions and textures.  The plate (photograph) described here is an example of where, for a range of reasons, everything came together.  The camera/darkbox cart, with the nickname ‘The Beasty’ (I’m not sure why), is a slow thing to move.  It takes time, and like the process itself, moving it around makes you, the user, slow down.  This is part of the appeal.  It can’t be rushed, and once the right location is found, it usually takes at least 15 minutes to set up.

Pouring the collodion emulsion onto a sheet of clean glass is a curious experience.  You have to empty your head and focus on what the collodion is doing.  Just when you think that your head and your hand are talking to each other, you’ll find that the ambient temperature, or the age of the collodion, or a dozen other factors conspire against you, and the collodion won’t flow as smoothly as you expected.  After the collodion is poured evenly onto the glass plate, it’s then placed into a bath of silver nitrate for a few minutes where it becomes light sensitive.  It then goes into a plate holder, placed into a camera, and exposed.

The camera doesn’t have a shutter as such, and so the exposure is commenced and ended by taking off the lens cap.  The exposure time of the first plate is guessed at.  Wet Plate is only sensitive to UV and blue light, and so you need to use past experience and your eyes as a light meter.  When the lens cap is off, you look at the sky, watching to make sure that if a cloud comes over, you know to add time to the exposure.  When you see the results of the first plate, you can then judge the variation of the time or the f-stop.

The developer used is different than that used in conventional b/w process.  It is splashed on, and then as soon as the mid tones start to appear, it is drained off and then washed before fixing.  The development process can take seconds—in the case of this particular plate, about 8 seconds.  I always get anxious during this process, as I normally over develop the plate, and it fogs.  It’s only when you place the plate into the fixer that you see the image appear more fully, and that’s the magical moment.  It then has to be washed again.

The olive grove seems to be a place where the many parrots, that would normally be quite timid, have a ‘yeah whatever’ attitude towards your presence.  This particular plate, which is 4.5 x 6.5 inches, was taken at about 6.30pm on a January day when the Rosellas, Lorikeets, Galahs and Corellas really didn’t care about my presence.   The f11, 90second exposure, while affording a good amount of detail, didn’t register their presence, nor that of the native rat that leisurely trundled into and out of the miniature gorge cut by the creek through the grove.

Although I have since produced a number of landscape plates that I’m equally as happy with, there was something about the time and place—the calmness of the environment and the way in which that sense of peace produced the ease with which the plate was poured and handled—that causes me to have a particular attachment with the image.  In any photographic process, the coming together of time, place, materiality, and technique, seem to be the key.  For me, it came together in this image.

Image credits

Portrait of myself with my camera:  Photographer; Che Chorley, January 2015.

All other photographs; Andrew Dearman.

Salt Print

It was not a light decision, choosing a pinhole camera, as my only camera for an overseas trip to a special place called, Angkor Wat, in Cambodia.

But this is the choice I made in November 2014.

I set off with a beautifully built (by Ian Latter, Boxes in Wood) pinhole camera and a dozen double darks, an empty box and full box of 4 x 5 film.

When I arrived, I went to the Angkor Wat offices at the site and booked a seven day pass, you can get anything from one day to seven, but the latter seemed appropriate, as the site is a big complex.

For those not aware, Angkor Wat in its beauty and state of preservation, is unrivalled. 

Angkor Wat is located about six kilometers (four miles) north of Siem Reap. It was built in the first half of the 12th century (113-5BC). Estimated construction time of the temple is 30 years by King Suryavarman II. Its perfection in composition, balance, proportions, relief’s and sculpture make it one of the finest monuments in the world.

My days always started early, not only because I wake early and love the early morning light, it tends to beat the crowd, for a while.

The good thing about pinhole (especially my wide angle pinhole camera which is 48mm) is that it allows you to get in close, like real close and therefore minimises human traffic moving through the picture, while taking an exposure.

My exposures were around 3 minutes or thereabouts, using 100 ISO film.

After going out to shoot in the morning, the rest of the day was planning for the next and seeing some other features around town.

Come about 2 am, up and into the bathroom and lay everything out on the floor, to change my film that had already been exposed for some fresh sheets and ready for another day.  Not easy with humidity and sweaty palms. It had to be that time in the morning to minimize lights that could be on outside or in the corridors of the hotel.

One of the biggest issues I had was with the long exposures, especially when the crowds started to arrive, it allowed enough time for people arriving at the site I was photographing, to walk into the pictures, without them knowing I was taking a picture, after all the pinhole does not look so much like a modern day camera.

Once back in Australia, it was into my darkroom and I processed all the film by hand, 3 sheets at a time, in trays.

This worked out okay, but damage can easily be done with scratches, dust and uneven development.

I made a decision to salt print the ones I liked most and was happy with the results.

In conclusion, was it a good idea to just do pinhole? Yes and no. Yes, it was a challenge, no, as it was extremely difficult.

I suppose the bonus is my pictures do not look like the rest of the pictures taken by hundreds/thousands of people on the day, from the same spot.

That has to be a good thing.

Robert James Elliott