Kiki Smith
Greg Kucera deals with some very big names in art and will sometimes bring artists by to visit Larry and show them the frameshop and Art Resource(also owned by Greg and Larry) upstairs. So I was out front putting away samples and in comes Greg with a women with some wild grey hair. This women turns out to be Kiki Smith. Greg introduces her and asks me to show her some of my plates and the big Deardorff camera I keep at the shop. Greg suggested to Kiki that she should get her picture taken and I happily agreed. She thought about it and said I had ten minutes. Greg and Kiki go upstairs and visit Art Resource upstairs and frantically set up a make-shift backdrop with some black gator board and a chair next to a tall window in the wood shop. I had enough light filtering in but set up a big soft box for insurance and then set up my impromptu darkroom in the employee lounge. I cut and cleaned an 11 x 14 glass plate then quickly poured on the collodion and then dropped it into the silver nitrate bath. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough silver to cover the entire plate so I had to adjust for this on the ground glass. so then Kiki comes down sans Greg and I show her where to sit. When she sat down, I was struck by her hair and her tattooed. I asked her to look out the window and explained that exposure was going to be 4 seconds and that she could blink and just relax.
I ran into the “darkroom” and loaded the plate into the holder and ran back to load the holder, told her I would give her a countdown and proceeded to expose the plate. I asked her if she wanted to watch the plate develop and she agreed. I led her into the ether filled room and poured on the developer. I prayed to the collodion gods and the image developed with a sweet amount of exposure. My anxiety lifted as the image appeared. I remember Kiki being very concerned about how I was not wearing gloves and that she warned me “You will fuck yourself up”. I just laughed and tried to explain that the silver nitrate would only stain my fingers for a week or so. She became concerned and told me she had some permanent lung damage and other issues from exposure to shit like acetone and other nasty stuff. I told her that the only reason I wasn’t wearing gloves was that I had just run out- I always wear gloves and the breakroom is well ventilated and the back woodshop windows are always open when I shoot there-
She really freaked out when I dunked the plate into the Cyanide bath. She held her nose and took a few steps back and snapped a few shots of me clearing the plate. After the plate was washed I threw it on the small electric griddle and invited her to watch it dry. Once it was dry she told me about how different races age differently and how white women lose fat above their mouth which causes it to fall slightly. She said the plate was beautiful and I was glad the plate had made it to the hotplate and was now fixed and dry. After it was varnished I asked Kiki if she would like a print from the plate and I offered to give her one of the plates if she sat for another one. She thought about it for 2 seconds and said she would but she was hungry and asked where she could get something to eat. Larry suggested Cherry Street Coffee so she went across the street and got a bowl of soup.
I prepared another plate and mixed some developer waited for her to get back. She came back and told me she had a friend picking her up soon so I need to be quick. She sat again but this time I asked to turn her head and look to the right. The window light had faded and the Softbox was the safer light source. I wanted to get a straight on shot of her face but to not have her look into the camera. I took the shot, processed, and varnished it. SAFE!!! two frickin shots of Kiki on the quick!! with no warning and no preparation…………eesh!
After the plate varnishe had hardened we looked at the plates and she said that she would take the plate that I didn’t want. I liked the second shot and she took the first. We exchanged info and I packed her plate for a safe trip back to New York.
No CommentsRobert Hardgrave Rapture Suit
So Robert Hardgrave mentioned this suit he made to me a few months ago. He brought it in for me to look at and we set up a date to photograph him wearing the thing. I shot him against a white backdrop I bought from the home depot. There was a lot of negative space so we ran outside and ripped off a bunch of Ivy from a nearby building. I draped some Ivy here and there and threw down a few leaves in the foreground. I even used some of the potted plants hanging out at the frameshop. It all helped and helped top break up the white a bit. I shot the front a back of the suit with him standing up. It is difficult to shoot someone standing for 6 second especially wearing an uncomfortable and hot suit made of canvas remnants. The fact that Robert could not see anything didn’t help either. The first shot came out way to soft from the motion blur so then I used the head held down with a sandbag and had him steady himself against it. I wrapped the base with white linen so the legs would not appear in the shot. Exposure was at f/8 for 5- 6 seconds using the big brass Bausch and lomb Tessar f4.5. The second shot was sharper but over exposed to be a positive but should make for a great negative. There was a total of 5 shots and with good exposure and good sharpness. The back of the suit was the last shot and I developed it unevenly on purpose. Robert mentioned he like the artifacts left by letting the developer pool and sit on certain areas longer so that is why is looks so wild. The suit is for a new show in Denver.
rapture suit front
rapture suit back
David Harms
There are a handful of people that practice wet plate in Washington state and David Harms is one of them. We met up one day at my studio in Georgetown and proceeded to geek out!! he brought his handmade ultra large format camera (12 x 20) and he set it up for me. He mentioned that he would be getting some instruction on making Daguerreotypes from a guy in Oregon. He said he would be willing to share information and possibly work together in the future to create some Dags. There is nothing more beautiful than a finely crafted Daguerreotype and someday I WILL have the knowledge to make them.
David was cool about being photographed so I shot a couple of 11 x 14 inch plates. The exposure was 1 second at f/22 and it was shot with the big Hawkeye 14 x 17 RR lens. The bigger plates take a lot of collodion and they are absorb a ton of silver nitrate so I shoot them rarely. I think this called for the bigger plate. There is a chemical fog on this plate from the heat. I suspect the developer but I had a very weak cyanide bath and the batch of collodion may have been a little off. It doesn’t take much to run into trouble and I was happy I got this image that day.
No CommentsWuon Gean Ho
I am not on some strict plan to only shoot local artists. The hell with that!! Every time I meet someone, I can’t help but visualize a portrait of them in collodion. I met Wuon Gean while she was visiting Print Zero and Seattle from London. She has shown at Davidson Galleries and was on her way to Canada to give an artist talk. Her print work is very sensitive and powerful. She seemed very interested in the collodion process so I invited her to sit for a portrait. She was there and watched me shoot a couple of portraits ealier in the week.
Shot with my favorite lens- the Vitax at 4 seconds and wide open. It had been hot in Seattle and this photo was taken on one of the hotter days. The plate started to dry around the edges where the collodion was the thinnest.
No CommentsSoil Auction
Very honored to be invited to donate a piece for the SOIL Auction this year. I had a little trouble trying to find a portrait to donate so I figured I would just donate a portrait of my big studio camera named Daisy. It was fun to see itget bids and to see who won the auction. It definitely went to a very good home.
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under the Darkcloth
Here is a funny picture Brian Lane took of me while I was shooting Alda. I usually have all the lights dimmed and compose without the darkcloth but Brian was there doing something.
I am shooting with the 18 inch Wollensak Verito diffused focus lens.
No CommentsPhotographs Featured in Magazines
In Ocotber I had the picture of Whiting Tennis featured in Art Ltd. Magazine.
In late July, I shot a series of portraits for Drew Christie for Seattle Magazine and one of them was featured in October as well.
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