Richmond Alternative Photography

For the past year I have been slowly building a new camera that will actually operate the way that I want, and not make me look and feel like I’m making images with cardboard and duct tape. Today, I finally wrapped up the project. It has been painstakingly constructed of solid American black walnut, with handmade bellows and brass hardware. I am not a woodworker, and I certainly surprised myself with the finished quality of this DIY project. All I’ve got to do now is mount a lens and start using it.

I feel like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars after he constructed his own lightsaber. The camera, like a lightsaber for a Jedi, is an important tool of the trade, and although you can make Wet-Plate images with a cheap Kodak Brownie, or an antique wooden view camera, it will be very nice to have a sturdy camera that doesn’t fight against your vision for the photograph. Having made my own camera also adds to the handmade quality of Wet-Plate images that I think is so special. Now my images will handmade on a deeper level.

September is looking to be a busy month as I have 2 shoots scheduled already. I’m trying to fill up as much time as I can collecting new images for my portfolio. I’ll travel anywhere as long as my gas is paid for and a place for me to pass out at the end of the night is provided. If you have a project that you need Wet-Plate photos for, get me there and I’ll shoot! Send me an email!

My plan is to assemble 10-12 excellent images into a portfolio by Spring of next year, and if all goes well, I will get an ADBASE subscription and begin promoting myself to magazines, ad agencies, art buyers/dealers, etc. It will cost me a small fortune to go this route, but it seems to be the best way to get your stuff out there, and a necessary evil in this business. I’ll do whatever I have to do.

Andy :: Aug.16.2010 :: Wet-Plate :: No Comments »

So, I’ve been home since Thursday and I’ve been trying to settle down from my trip and get readjusted to home life. It hasn’t been easy….

For the past 2 years I haven’t shot much Wet-Plate aside from the occasional plate for family and friends. After my divorce in 2008, I kind of put it aside to work on other parts of my life. Photography, in general, is something I love, so I knew it wouldn’t be a permanent departure.

My trip began with a 16 1/2 hour drive to John Coffer’s farm in Dundee, NY. At John’s I didn’t really shoot much. His place has been photographed more than most, especially in Wet-Plate, and I mainly wanted to just take it all in. It is such a unique place, and nowhere else other than his annual Jamboree are so many creative Wet-Plate folk assembled to shoot, be creative, and talk shop. I did a lot of listening. Being around something like that is so inspiring, especially when there are so many people hammering out plates left and right, even in mammoth plate formats such as 20×24. I met some great people whom I only knew as screen names on web forums, as well as others I didn’t. I looked at equipment, portfolios, new plates, etc. Needless to say, I was fired up again about shooting by the time I left the John’s.

After John’s, I headed up to the Rochester area to visit my friend Frank Petronio whom I have been corresponding with by email for almost 3 years. I saw his work online by chance one time and couldn’t help but email and ask questions. What he was doing was a big part of my idea to start shooting “models” that I found online at places like Model Mayhem. I have always enjoyed shooting photos of people more than vases with flowers, or landscapes of mountain views, and Frank was doing it in a very interesting way…not only was he capturing beautiful images, but each one had an incredible adventure and story to go along with it. So, Frank invited me to visit while I was in the area and called up 4 of the ladies he has been shooting with regularly so myself and another Wet-Plate photographer, Eddie Gunks, could shoot with them.

It was a great experience, although a little crazy with trying to find time to shoot images with everyone in attendance. I actually kind of feel like I short changed a few of the girls because I didn’t shoot an equal number of plates with everyone. It was a great experience though, and now I can’t stop thinking about who/what/when/where I’ll be shooting again. This event reminded me how much I love photography, why I do it, and more importantly, I know without a doubt that this is my true calling.

The ride home was somewhat depressing because the entire trip was sort of an opportunity for me to pretend that I had my dream job for a few days. Then it was over and I had to return home. The silver nitrate stains on my hand are fading, and aside from the latent images and memories, the smell of lavender plate varnish that permeates my apartment is all that is left.

Links: Meagan Sample, Ryann C, Sarah Wintle, Alex Reece

Andy :: Aug.08.2010 :: Events, Wet-Plate :: No Comments »

I just returned home Thursday from a trip to Dundee, NY for John Coffer’s Wet-Plate Jamboree, and from visiting my friend Frank Petronio in Spencerport, NY. I’ve been busy varnishing plates from the trip, scanning, correcting, and readjusting to being home again. I’m working on a post about my trip that will be posted soon…just gotta get some time alone where I can reflect and put it all down. Was sort of a big deal of a trip for me, although it didn’t really start out that way.

I can say this: I’M BACK!

Its been too long since I posted last….stay tuned.

Andy :: Aug.08.2010 :: Uncategorized :: No Comments »

These are images that I shot on my visit home to Hammond, LA during Christmas. I took an afternoon and walked around the downtown area and shot some of the well-known landmarks. These photos are High Dynamic Range images that have been created using Photomatix Pro and are made from 10-15 bracketed images. I’ve been experimenting a lot with HDR lately for my digital work and I really enjoy the effects that I get with the process.

Andy :: Jan.03.2009 :: Digital Photography, Photoshop :: Comments Off

It’s been awhile since I posted any photos and these are a set that I have been working on over the past 5 weeks. Recently, I have had the opportunity to roam around the old Missouri State Penitentiary  for about half an hour each evening. These are images I shot during that time. The last inmates were moved out of the facility in 2004, and it is incredible how quickly the buildings have deteriorated. There is a lot of history in these buildings and it has been a real privilege  to roam them unattended.

Andy :: Oct.10.2008 :: General :: Comments Off

I had a great week in Kansas City, and enjoyed all the new people I met. I definitely need to live in a place like KC if I plan on being serious about photography and art. Friday night, I actually slept in my car in the Crossroads District. I woke up when the sun came up, walked down the street to YJ’s coffee, enjoyed a plate of spicy biscuits and gravy, and met a few of the regulars at the place. It was great!  

My shoot with Sarah was probably the most prolific that I’ve had since I’ve been pursuing wet-plate photography, and more specifically moving toward an emphasis in photographing fashion.

Sarah is great! Very multi-talented. She made all of the clothing seen in the photos, and that was only a small portion of the things she had in her closet. She’s also a graphic designer, working with the largest ad agency in Kansas City. I have no doubt in my mind that she will be a successful clothing designer one day. I’m no expert, but I know talent when I see it. She’s got it. These photos are in my opinion, the best work I’ve done yet, and I owe everyone who has helped me along the way (you know who you are).

I learned a lot of things about myself on this trip, and I feel closer to being able to set some real goals for myself very soon. I have always been the kind of person who obsessed about making plans for everything, and always knowing in advance what I would be doing from one minute to the next. I have found out through traveling and going on little excursions like the one this past week, that I am most successful when I set no expectations and throw myself to the whims of chance. 

Andy :: Aug.31.2008 :: Wet-Plate :: Comments Off

It was brought to my attention that my gallery wasn’t working for some reason. I have corrected the problem and I apologize to anyone who tried to view images and couldn’t access them.  

Andy :: Aug.28.2008 :: General :: Comments Off

I had a shoot yesterday with probably the coolest model I’ve worked with so far. I found Sarah on ModelMayhem, and I’m not really sure why I didn’t ask to shoot with her sooner. Wow! She’s gorgeous! Sweetest person on the planet too! We were very efficient working together as well. I think out of a total of three hours of actual shooting, we did 14 plates, 10 of which were “keepers”. Things work well when all involved are good at what they do.

It was a great day….we shot a little before lunch in the West Bottoms area of Kansas City, had some lunch at a Mexican restaurant by the river, walked around a little, and then almost got arrested for trespassing on Union Pacific railroad property. 

I should have scans posted sometime next week, but until then, I’ll leave you with this teaser snap from my webcam. I can’t wait to shoot with her again!

I’m in Kansas City the rest of the week for work…staying at the Westin (niiice). There’s lots I could be doing, in a big city like this…somehow I convinced myself that sitting in the hotel lobby for 5 hours using the free wi-fi was better than going out on the town. I’m a retard (no offense to any retards who might be reading).

Andy :: Aug.26.2008 :: Wet-Plate :: Comments Off

I finally had an opportunity to do some new images since taking a break over the winter. Yeah, I know its July now, but I had a slow start getting moving again.I received a message awhile back from a photographer on Model Mayhem who was going to be traveling thru Missouri on a photo excursion in mid-July. He and two photographer friends do this once every year or two and they bring a model with them. They wanted to stop and visit with me while they were in town, as well as shoot some photos. I was all for it, so over the weekend of July 12th I met up with these guys.Patrick Alt is a large format photographer out of Los Angeles. He is also a master of the platinum printing process. Along with him were Steve Raines of Wyoming, and Robert Finley from Oklahoma, both large format photographers and master’s of the platinum printing process as well. They brought along Ms. Erin Wilson, a model who does mostly nudes from the San Francisco bay area. Erin is also a phoographer who shoots medium format on her own projects. I set us up to shoot on Saturday morning at the old Renz Farm prison across the river from Jefferson City. Erin does mostly nude modeling, so it was a great opportunity for me to get some nudes into my portfolio. On Sunday, we went to Frankenstein, MO to shoot at an old abandoned farm house the guys found on their way into town. Below are a couple plates from the weekend.

Hanging around these guys really got me interested in trying to make prints again. Back in 2006 I gave printmaking a try with Van Dyke Brown prints and Salt prints. I really liked how easy salt prints were to make, and I think if I could get a good negative, I could make some really nice ones. I might take a weekend to try doing some landscapes and make negatives and see how I do. Salt prints are really easy, and I have all the stuff to do them (as does any wet-plate photographer), so it would be easy to give them a try over a sunny weekend. 

Andy :: Jul.22.2008 :: Wet-Plate :: Comments Off

I’ve been playing with some retouching techniques in photoshop and I have to say, I never realized how much these techniques were used in the professional world. I’ve learned a ton about photoshop that I didn’t know was possible. Layer Masks are extremely powerful! After messing around with this stuff, I must say that if there is one single skill that is the most important to learn in Photoshop, it would be working with layer masks.

I’ll keep the identity of the victim secret to protect the innocent, but it was a perfect image for me to play with. You’ll notice that I thinned the bridge of the nose, restructured the left side of her jaw, popped the eyes, removed some smile lines, and smoothed out the skin. If I spent more time on it, I’d probably do 3 or 4 more versions of the same image to see which one is better, but I think this was a pretty good first attempt. I tried to keep the corrections subtle so they stayed believeable. If you click the image above, you’ll be sent to a copy of the high resolution version.

Andy :: May.26.2008 :: Photoshop :: Comments Off