chuckography

"When Old Is New Again..."

"Altered Narratives" was conceived by local photographer
Christine Eadie.
An accomplished photographer, she also has been known locally as the Charleston Tin Typist for several years now.

She explored this 18th-century art form and then started creating her own, most notably at Civil War re-enactments.

Christine took a sample "old school" photo of me last year at The Battle of Charleston.

Recently, she converted a trailer into her portable darkroom to make wet plate tintypes on the spot, right next to the battlefield.

That's how they did it back in Mathew Brady's day as he and others pioneered pictorial coverage of the War Between The States with horse-drawn facilities for developing wet plate photos.

Anyway, her growing skill with tintypes encouraged her to contact 11 other like-minded artists and photographers.

This talented dozen presents its collective "old-is-new" effort March 19 - May 1, 2016, at the City Art Gallery, overlooking the pineapple fountain, at the newly-renamed Joe Riley Waterfront Park.

Here is a close-up portion of a carbon-transfer 25" x 31" framed print titled "Angel of Fisterra," by Sandy King.

The city gallery is open and airy and well lighted for viewers of art.

However, taking a photo is a challenge because of the prints being framed with glass and there are multiple light reflections.

Most galleries do not allow photography so my preview look might be the exception.

I had a friend stand behind me to use him to block the reflected glare on "Metamorphosis."

But I started laughing when I saw the overall image his attempt made on the gallery wall.

I would have had him hold up a blanket if one had been handy.

The artists were there at this pre-opening event.

They answered questions about the media they used and  detailed the many arduous steps involved. This was not a simple digital camera experience.

Just a listing of the mediums and techniques used is impressive: tintype, palladium, gum bichromate and ziatypes.

Add in hand-colored black and white art to help define the hands-on approach of crafting a photograph from start to finish.

I talked with a few others who had built darkrooms in their homes long ago.

We refreshed our memories of the chemical smells, eerie red and yellow lighting and the craft of moving images around to create some result we had only in our mind.

(Click on the photos and links for more details.)

Saw only one person there at the gallery, snapping pictures with a Smartphone camera.

And that was just a picture of Eadie, posing by her exhibit.

Here is a replacement copy for the one I snapped of her concept of "Crossing Over." This lighting is excellent and no glaring reflections!

Let me add, that this is a wet plate collodion on aluminum.

Be sure to stop by the City Gallery and see for yourself. All of these look much better there!

Labels: "Angel of Fisterra, Altered Narratives, gum bichromate, hand-colored photos, old-is-new, palladium, tintype, wet plate photos, ziatypes

posted by chuckography @ 5:27 PM