Category — 21st Century Photography

If you’re going to buy one photography book this year this is the one. This tome, while not inexpensive, is jam packed with information and it comes with an accompanying CD which has the entire book (text and images -over 450 of them) in a digital form that’s fully searchable!

Michael Peres is the Editor-in-Chief but was assisted in the monumental undertaking by a fantastic assembly of other editors including:

Franziska Frey (Digital Photography)
J. Tomas Lopez (Contemporary Issues)
David Malin (Photography in Science)
Mark Osterman (Process Historian)
Grant Romer (History and the Evolution of Photography)
Nancy M. Stuart (Major Themes and Photographers of the 20th Century)
Scott Williams (Photographic Materials and Process Essentials)

If you’re interested in the art of photography, it’s history, major photographers, and the way the art has developed (since the beginning) you must have this book.

Read more here >>

© Martha Casanave.

The cyanAtype, also known as the Gum-Iron process results in a positive blue print from a positive. It’s a great way to make interesting photograms (without first making a film negative). It was originally patented in 1878 by Pellet.

You need to make three stock solutions:

Solution A
40grams……Gum Arabic
200cc……….Water

Solution B
100grams……Ammonium-citrate of Iron (red)
200cc……….Water

Solution C
100grams……Ferric Chloride
200cc……….Water

To use mix 100 parts A with 40 parts B and then add 25 parts C. It’s very important to mix them in the order A+B+C else it will be a minor disaster. Allow the mixture cure for a few hours until it reaches a state of being like soft butter. If you keep it in a dark place the mixture should remain usable for several days (the unmixed B and C solutions will last indefinitely, solution A only for a few weeks).

I’m fairly certain that you can substitute Ferric Ammonium Citrate (green) in Solution B and it would be faster/more light sensitive. I’ll be testing it in the coming days and will report back.

While I have no idea which formula(s) Martha Casanave is using, she’s done some very nice work with positive cyanatypes (there are some traditional negative ones too!).

© Tom Persinger. Image made using APHS Lith film developed in low-contrast developer, scanned in color, minor manipulation of levels, and output with an inkjet printer.

Quite a few people pursue work in historic processes because of the way they render the tonality of a scene. It’s unlike nearly any other contemporary process. I’ve often heard cited that it’s the *look* of wet plate collodion; how it renders the sky, skin, trees, etc that initially inspires people to pursue the wonderful, complicated, toxic, and somewhat cumbersome process.

The reason images made with those processes look different is what’s known as spectral sensitivity (also known as spectral response). Put simply this means how sensitive a photographic substrate (film, glass, paper, or CCD) is to radiation in the different spectral regions. The older processes were largely insensitive to light in the orange-red end of the spectrum (which is why you can use them in a room illuminated with a safe light) and highly sensitive to the blue-green end of the spectrum.

That said, there is a way to mimic (not replicate) those older processes with contemporary techniques through the use of lithography film. Ordinarily, ‘lith’ film is used by graphic arts professionals to create negatives with a very limited tonal range (eg: pure black/white) which would be generally unacceptable for most photographic needs. When developed with a low contrast developer, however, one may achieve negatives with a full range of tones. And, they’ll also have the look of an image from the 19th Century.

The reason for this is that lith film has a spectral sensitivity which is blind to orange-red light. I’ve put together this chart to illustrate how a modern film, Ilford’s HP5, sees color and how that compares to APHS Lith Film (sadly, APHS is no longer available from Freestyle, but there is a replacement that’s similar in response).

© Tom Persinger. Spectral Sensitivy of Lith Film as compared to Ilford HP5

The image at top was made using lith film. It’s a black and white negative that was scanned and output in color with hardly any other photoshop manipulation. The blue of the sky is a result of overexposure and solarization. It almost has the look of a daguerreotype.

There’s a lot of potential in lith film. Not only is it available at a fraction of the cost of modern film, but you can develop it by inspection under red safelight conditions to reveal a perfect negative nearly every time. We’ll be following this post up with the recipe and process for development in the coming days.

Enjoy!

F295 member Jill Enfield recently gave a wonderful lecture about her work at the B&H Event Space. She discusses the full range of what she’s been doing including digital infrared, hand-painting, liquid emulsion on handmade tile, and collodion. She also shares her thoughts on how combining contemporary and historic processes enlivens her work.

We’re pleased to share with you -in its entirety- here! It’s about 45 minutes in length.

Enjoy the show.

© Nick Dvoracek

A while back long time F295 forum contributor Nick Dvoracek invented, and freely released to the world, a great manual on building a simple 35mm pinhole camera. He appropriately named this everyman’s camera, built from a cereal box, rubber bands, and a twig: The Populist.

The Populist is a marvel. In just a few hours and using only the simplest of materials -that nearly all of us have lying about the house- we can build a fully functioning camera AND take exciting pictures. Nick has done a great service to the world of photography by gifting us with this little gem.

If his first design wasn’t enough Nick took the camera a step further; offering plans for medium format, stereo, and panoramic models. Wow.

If you can’t cut or draw a straight line, have reservations about your patience to follow directions, or otherwise lack the inclination one can buy a nifty panoramic pinhole camera made by Holga for $49.95, but when you can build one for about …errrr… nothing - you owe it to yourself to try Nick’s free directions first!

There’s a great thread on the F295 forum in which Nick discusses the impetus for the panoramic model and shares some pictures of the construction process as well as some wonderful images made with the camera.

© Nick Dvoracek

Complete directions for all the Populist models are freely available on Nick’s website >>

If you build it, the pictures will come.

This very fun video from Jill Enfield is a great example of what I like call ’21st Century Street Photography.’ Bresson says of his work “I prowled the streets all day, feeling very strung-up and ready to pounce, determined to “trap” life…” Enfield clearly takes a very different approach.

Enjoy the show.

Google Books is a wonderful resource for books that would be otherwise rare or unavailable on 19th Century Photography. This text: ‘A Manual of Photographic Chemistry, Including the Practice of Collodion’ by T. Frederick Hardwich written in 1855 is a great example of a book that would otherwise be crammed away in the storage room of a university library but is now able to be consulted and used by those of us interested in such arcane matters!

The text includes a number of interesting chapters including (there are many others as well):

Historical Sketch of Photography
Chemistry of the Salts of Silver Employed in Photography
The Photographic Action of the Salts of Silver
On Fixing the Photographic Image
The Nature and Properties of Light

Hardwich’s closing paragraph to the introduction sums it up nicely:

If it shall be found that a preliminary study of this volume tends, in some measure, to remove those numerous causes of failure which have hitherto peplexed beginners I shall be satisfied that any amount of care and pains which I may have expended were not misplaced.

Get the entire PDF here >>

*It’s important to note that in the 19th century a lot of the health concerns associated with photographic chemistry were as yet unknown. Please take appropriate precaution with any chemical. You would be wise to find the MSDS and follow the recommended guidelines.

In the Darkroom: An Illustrated Guide to Photographic Processes before the Digital Age published by the Thames & Hudson for National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, complete with a wonderful timeline outlining the popular use of 27 historic processes and one page summaries (with examples) of each technique, is a must for the library of any serious artist-photographer

Buy it here >>