Tag: collodion

Isa Marcelli – Untitled from Toccata series (2015-16)

In music, toccata means literally ‘light touch’ and is a designation afforded to a pieces (usually keyboard based but also sometimes including string instruments) which are notoriously difficult to perform but allow the musician to show off their deftly virtuositic lightness of touch.

With the image above, there are several layers of meaning to draw from this. First that the woman is holding an egg resonates with the title. (And I can’t help but recall the apocryphal account of Brunelleschi carrying a basket of eggs and dropping them as a result of his shock upon encountering Masaccio’s Holy Trinity Fresco.) Secondly, Marcelli is using collodion to produce ferrotypes. (Collodion wet plates experienced their widest usage during the U.S. Civil War–during which time collodion was actually used to close up severe wounds; but through a process involving a number of extremely hazardous chemicals, i.e. ether and cyanide, it was possible to produce a resilient negative image on transparent glass.) Also: collodion is not exactly the most user friendly format as you have roughly 12 minutes to evenly coat the plate, load it into your camera, expose and process the resulting image.

Source: wolfsonstuart.blogspot.com

Erica Shires – Untitled (200X)

Sally Mann is perhaps the contemporary artist most associated with collodion wet plates processes.

There’s a scene in the wonderful HBO documentary What Remains; while preparing a plate, Mann mentions that collodion was originally used as a means of closing up wounds.

It’s an unsettling caveat from a woman who spent the majority of her most ambitious work photographing the specters of death.

There is always too much reverence with Mann’s work to tolerate even the slightest waste.

(Will Graham would say: this is my design.)

…

There’s no doubt Erica Shires is good. The question is: how good is she?

Her colors pop without ever supersaturating. Her compositions are at once rigorously formal and effortless. She presents her subjects with a studied yet unassuming intimacy.

If there were a list of the best 40 photographers under 40, the viability of the list could be judged based on whether or not Shires’ appears in the top 5. (Any list where she doesn’t would be utter bollocks and for whatever my opinion is worth, the top spot belongs to her.)

Source: ericashires.com