4 New Clear Glass Ambrotypes

Some more completed 4x5 ambrotypes from this year’s shooting. Things are coming along. Thank you my Facebook friends.

4 New Black Acrylic Backed Clear Glass Ambrotypes

Video Link: Dark Forrest Scene, Banff National Park, AMBROTOS KANATA, 4x5 Clear Glass Ambrotype, Alberta, Canada, 2021

This ambrotype is a bit dark, but in a way I like its mood. Like all ambrotypes it needs to be well lit. I have no idea how I will frame and light these for exhibition. Part of the 15 year AMBROTOS KANATA PROJECT. Am still learning how to coat the back of these wonderful 3D like, captured INSIDE the glass babies!! So much yet to learn, BUT BOY IS THIS FUN!

Dark Forrest Scene, Banff National Park, AMBROTOS KANATA, 4x5 Clear Glass Ambrotype, Alberta, Canada, 2021

 

 

Dark Forrest Scene, Banff National Park, AMBROTOS KANATA, 4x5 Clear Glass Ambrotype, Alberta, Canada, 2021

 

Video Link: Forest Scene, Lake Louise Campground, AMBROTOS KANATA, 4x5 Clear Glass Ambrotype, Alberta, Canada, 2021

Another vid, don't these things look nice in. motion :). Am falling in love!! This shot might be a tad underexposed, but not sure on that.

Forest Scene, Lake Louise Campground, AMBROTOS KANATA, 4x5 Clear Glass Ambrotype, Alberta, Canada, 2021

Video Link: Forest scene, Banff National Park, AMBROTOS KANATA, 4X5 Clear Glass Ambrotype, Alberta, Canada, 2021

Here is a Vimeo link to this early ambrotype. They always look better when they are in motion and your eye can roam around the ilusion of 3D.

Video Link: Forest scene, Banff National Park, AMBROTOS KANATA, 4X5 Clear Glass Ambrotype, Alberta, Canada, 2021 

Screen Capture of Vid

Failures And Part Succeses With Paint Blackening The Back Of Clear Glass Ambrotypes

I am refining the acrylic paint I am using and trying mixes with varnish to make the consistency of the fluid a bit less solid. One of the paints is drying with small cracks so trying to figure out why. I am trying one higher end artist acrylic as well, to see if it is worth the extra money. Am also doing 2 varnishes of plates today, a double varnish should theoretically add more protection to the collodion. 

An online friend (Borut P) also suggested albuminizing (egg white/distilled water coating) all plates. I like that idea. It would make the collodion stick that much better to the glass. The only down side is the plates would be harder to clean and reuse in the field. It is sometimes hard to remove collodion that has been attached with albumen.

The washable paint idea did not work at all, it destroyed the ambrotype, even with a coat of varnish on it.

Destroyed Ambrotype, washable black paint

Black Glass Versus Clear Glass

Here are 2 photos from the 2021 shooting season. Both are 4x5 images, the tree on black glass and the forest scene on clear glass with the acrylic paint blackening and 1 varnish. I like the black glass but find the clear glass superior because of the look through the glass 3D like glow you get in the image. There is also the illusion of the subject, that moment in time, being caught forever INSIDE the glass.

Note* Pics lit with a Florescent light source.

Dim Sum followed me downstairs and went right to work at my side

Black Glass left, Clear Glass right

Old Broken Tree, Prince Albert National Park, AMBROTOS KANATA, 4x5 Clear Glass, Saskatchewan, Canada, 2021

Old Broken Tree, Prince Albert National Park, AMBROTOS KANATA, 4x5 Clear Glass, Saskatchewan, Canada, 2021

Another Early AMBROTOS KANATA pic (image is sharp)

Experimenting With Paints To Blacken Clear Glass Ambrotypes

Tonight I am experimenting with different type paints for backing ambrotypes. Many acrylics, a tempera and a washable paint.

Thinking the best options at present will be to use a high end more expensive archival artist level black acrylic paint with a double varnish applied first. I am also eager to see how washable black paint works. Theoretically you could wash the paint off with the double layer of varnish protecting the collodion, at some later date. The goal is to find a working method for the larger clear glass ambros of the future, up to 35x35 inches.

Will also give asphaltum another try in the coming weeks. My initial work with that material was so so.

I prefer the looking throught the glass feel of the clear glass flipped plate images over tintypes, black glass etc.

 

Trying many types of paints, to back, clear glass ambrotypes

 

Little Advert For Next Years UNB Exhibitions

https://www.unb.ca/cel/enrichment/art-centre/upcoming-exhibits.html

Advertisement from the UNB website.

Quotes: Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

VIDEO LINK: First Completed Ambrotype For AMBROTOS KANATA

 

Here is my first Ambrotype for the 15 year AMBROTOS KANATA photography project.

2 Fallen Trees, Banff National Park, AMBROTOS KANATA, Alberta, Canada 2021

https://vimeo.com/656496186

Screen Capture of Vid

Possible THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, UNB Exhibition Image #12.

Possible THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, UNB Exhibition Image #12.

 

Lay-Auh on a couch in the dump, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot, Thailand 2021

 

Lay-Auh on a couch in the dump, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot, Thailand 2021

Possible THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, UNB Exhibition Image #11.

Possible THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, UNB Exhibition Image #11.

Young Boy In His Dump Shack, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot, Thailand, 2019

 

Young Boy In His Dump Shack, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot, Thailand, 2019

Quote: James Baldwin

 " The song says, wake the children sleeping, you know, ones supposed to be a disturber of the peace."

Quote: Me

"The dream starts first, the rest follows."

Ambrotypes Good And Bad, Self-Portraits?

 

Recent blackened Ambros I brought to work tonight, failures and successes alike, BUT ALL FUN! There is great joy in looking at them and then imagining what MIGHT BE. I like to dream of images, this sort of thing helps the process. 

 

Got to figure out wet plate portraits, people photography is what I prefer. That is where the magic could be. Hopefully can do some portraits in the studio. Might have to go self-portrait mode for a while.

 

Like the brown tones best in this pic!

Dodging Ambrotypes In The Field?

Another simple (sort of boring) Ambrotype scene that I completed over the last few days. This one has been varnished and a black acrylic rubber type paint applied to the back (not a smooth application). Good image to practise and learn with.

The 3D effect is more pronounced in this photo. Subject and composition can add that illusion of depth especially in these clear glass reversed (seeing through the glass) Ambrotypes.

 

Kind of like the exposure on this one, thou it is a tad over on the left, you can see detail in the shadow area at the back right. I wonder if I can dodge the image during the exposure (in front of the lens enlarger like). Would that work? Dodging mask of some kind? Hands? Then I could lesson the tone of the highlights while maintaining the detail in the shadows. Seems rather difficult to do, but might be an option in the field. Or I guess I could just lose the shadow to black and expose properly for the majority of the scene.

 

Newly Completed 4x5 Fallen Trees Ambrotype

Over the last few days I have been completing some Ambrotypes by adding the blackening layer. One of the better Ambros made is a shot of a fallen tree in Banff National Park. The black acrylic rubber area on the back of the plate is not smooth and beautiful like last time, not sure why. Maybe I poured the layer too thick, maybe the mix was a bit different or maybe it is because I added a varnish layer to the plate this time. With experience I will work this problem out. The tree shot is lovely, a moment caught INSIDE the glass 3D, got to love that! Am loving wet plate more and more.

Fallen Trees Banff National Park, AMBROTOS KANATA, Alberta, 2021

Quote: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

 “(T)he line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years…. If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”

Quote: Adi Shankara (Indian Historical, Spiritual, Groovy-type Person)

  'Life is fragile like a raindrop on a lotus leaf.'

Quote: Ansel Adams

 “A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed and is, thereby, a true manifestation of what one feels about life in its entirety.”

Nice But Frustrating

I got a nice note from Rob W, the writer of the article in FRAMES photography magazine on "Ethics" that included 3 of THE FAMILIES OF DUMP PHOTOGRAPHS.

Here is the comment.

Here are the photographs in the story.

What I find frustrating is that every now and again I get a comment like this about the work from some higher up person in the world, educated, in power somewhere. This has happened quite a few times through the years. But when I make submissions of the same work to art folk in power, at the various top end Canadian Galleries and Museums, I most often do not even get an acknowledgement that they received or viewed the photographs. They seem to not have the time to even view the photographs, or maybe they just don't give a f-ck about the stories, about the lives shown. For many in the high end arty fart world,  social documentary images of truth and reality mean nothing. They only like or care about the wannabe high brow, selfish, Me Me Me, conceptional art.  Who gives a f-ck about some dip shit, arrogant artist, who is only concerned, only cares about themselves. The real people in this world matter more, their lives, their stories. Those are the  lives/works that should be hung.

Places like the Art Gallery Of Alberta (AGA) or the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)completely ignore the dump story. Other places like the Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) do write back, are encouraging but then say they have only an Indigenous Art mandate, and cannot show the photographs. Others like the Vancouver Art Gallery or the National Gallery in Ottawa, do communicate a bit, but things do not really move foreword, interest stops. So frustrating on many levels. At least the NGA, WAG, VAG write back. The AGA and the AGO could not give a rats ass. 

My goal since I started photography 40+ years ago has always been to have the work shown in Major Canadian galleries, to have the photo stories told to large Canadian audiences, to have the photographs collected for future generations of Canadians to view. The frustration I feel, is that the photographs always seem to be impressing the wrong people. The people in the galleries could care less but other people who are not in power, are moved, the photographs have an effect, the lives shown in the pictures matter to them. The rejections from the major Canadian galleries hurt. I always feel that I have failed my subjects, I have I have let them down. Their stories are being ignored because I cannot communicate their message well enough with my limited talent and skills.

Maybe someday a major show at a major museum will happen, heck I should have at least 20 years of life left😋. Am running out of time thou!! Lets move things forward, PLEASE.  I hope someday the eyes of the people in the photographs I make will be seen by large Canadian audiences, that is the dream. Then I can know a positive difference was made to help others, that my time spent and my life lived, mattered.

At least the people in Fredericton care, the UNB shows at their art centre are moving forward. I am most happy I can use some of the money earned (CARFAC artist fee) to donate and buy things for the families. The goal as always is to help the people in the pictures, the coming to UNB shows will allow that to happen. So these coming shows are wins,  all around positive wins. 

- Two exhibitions of large prints, telling the stories to larger audiences.

- An artist talk to educate and inform the gallery viewers.

- Donation of goods bought with the show money to the families. As a result of these UNB exhibitions children in the dump will get boots, families will have headlamps to work with, kids will get some candy and mothers will get some rice to cook with. 

ALL GREAT STUFF, so stop your whining Gerry 😃.

Ethics Article Read Through (Kinda!)

So I got a preview of the FRAMES magazine "Ethics" article written by Rob W today. From what I saw the article looks good, it includes 3 THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP photographs and will discuss ethics in photography using the "Families" story as the proper way to go about things.  I only glanced at the story because I have problems reading about ME ME ME, even in this situations like this where I am not the focus. Being uncomfortable with this sort of thing for a long time, it is one of the main reasons I invented the fictitious Mr. Yaum. I like to make the photographs, tell the stories, help the subjects but do not want to promote myself, it seems so self centered, even exploitive. I am sure Rob did a good job, he is a professional writer and trustworthy person. It should all be OK.

I will post the story here, later on, after FRAMES has been published and had a chance to make some money.  Better yet! Buy your own copy! Then you will have access to all the wonderful photographic work plus the essays each issue contains. I will post some links to the magazine when I get it. I think the "Ethics" story will will be sent to the publisher/mag in about 2 weeks time. 

https://readframes.com/

The Story Of Canada

Reading this "Value Village special tonight". A bit simplistic with lots of big colorful pics but am learning stuff.

My simple little book on Canada, part of the AMBROTOS KANATA research.

Embers That Burn Well

Damn I cannot stop looking at my little 4x5 inch glass Ambrotype, my first completed. Feel so excited about the possibilities. Whenever I have a new work that I like, it is an ember that starts a new photographic fire. I love thinking, doing, and looking at pictures, my reason for everything.

What might be created with the larger camera's? What wonders await? On seeing this little so so image, I am re-inspired to work that much harder. Cannot wait to get on the road again and making Ambrotypes!! Need to learn more about Canada history (good and bad) this winter and continue the wet plate work in studio for now.

Ain't Photography Grand!!! (plan on putting this quote on the old tombstone, a good way to go out!)

Side view of the 3mm glass plate.

At work, feeling good about the Ambrotype possibilities.

Coating on the back.

The image, a nice little 3D effect with the trees

Possible THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY, UNB Exhibition Image #4.

Possible THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY, UNB Exhibition Image #4.

Ooh starting a fire for her supper under the freeway. THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY, Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok, Thailand 2019

 

Ooh starting a fire for her supper under the freeway. THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY, Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok, Thailand 2019

 

Vintage Ambrotype Still Looks Good

Vintage Ambrotype probably 140-160 years old. The Ambrotype has a black paint on the collodion emulsion side of the glass. There appears to be no damage (flaking)to the collodion only a few small scratches to the black paint. Seems rather archival to me.

Who was she?

Back of Ambrotype, painted area.

Comparing the one I made to hers.

The blacks look deeper on mine. What would they look like in 160 years thou?

FINALLY A Dry Ambrotype!!

I have been thinking a lot about ambrotypes since the successful look of the varnish/acrylic backing paint (VARAP) combo. It is calming and rewarding to finally have my first dry ambrotype. The image is not perfect but it is of a quality near what I hope the eventual ULF plates will be. 

I have probably invested over $70 000 CAD in the AMBROTOS KANATA project. I did this on spec, on feel, on having an image in my minds eye that I wanted to make. I had an idea of what it might be, but nothing was for sure. It is quite wonderful to finally see a finished Ambrotype image for the first time. Now I know what can be done, I know that the money invested could make some important and beautiful work. Things are coming together in a positive way. I just need to work harder, to give it all I have.

Some thoughts I am having on this blackening clear glass plate process.

- Can I do it not only in black but other colors like a deep beauty red or a purple or blue?

- What will the plate look like when varnished first then coated? Would doing 2 varnishes along with using a more archival pro artist acrylic paint provide long term (over 150 years) archival protection for the images?

- Can I use some sort of water soluble paint, acrylic or water color. My thinking here is the plate would be protected by the varnish and at some future date I or an archivist could simply wash off the black off if needed.

- What will the plates look like unpainted but with a beauty dark velvet cloth backing (so far with my experimentation using cloth the image blacks look dull and listless).

- Should I move up to 4mm thick glass (from 3mm) when possible (if the specific holder will take 4mm). With 4mm I might have even more of a 3D illusion happening in the imagery. I love the 3D look, it what makes Ambroytypes beautiful for me.

My previous Ambrotype attempts were only wet versions, having something dry and kinda finished is a dream come true, a vision fulfilling itself.  I put my cart way ahead of my horse on this long term wet plate project AMBROTOS KANATA, followed the dream almost stupidly, almost blindly. 

Now I feel things are going in the right direction. This just might work out in the end. I feel I am on the right track.

Kinda finished 4x5 Ambrotype

VARAP, Vanished Acrylic Paint Covering

VARAP, (Varnish and acrylic paint mixture) rubberish, black mat covering of the collodion emulsion side of a clear glass plate. EXPERIMENTATION CONTINUES.

Mixed VARAP

Coated Plate

The finished look  3D ambrotype