dale bernstein photography |
wetplate collodion, silver based and digital |
Please join me in Indianapolis for upcoming wetplate workshops. The dates are May 19 & 20, June 9 & 10 and June 23 & 24. The cost is $400 and everything is included to make your own tintypes, ambrotypes or glass negatives. The workshops will be held in the historic Stutz Building. Feel free to contact me for more information. Thanks.
In early March of this year I was asked by Hector Sancez at Indianapolis Monthly to do a wetplate collodion portrait of 24 year old IndyCar driver J R Hildebrand for the May issue. When we originally scheduled the job, we were fortunate to have a forcast of about 68 degrees. Unusual for early March. Because of JR's busy schedule, we had to change it to one day earlier. Unfortunately it was only 28 degrees that day, which meant we had to work indoors. Wetplate photography becomes more problematic in the cold. Luckily, I was able to set up near one of the many garage doors in Panther Racing's facility. After setting everything up, including JR in his first pose and preparing a plate for exposure, we opened the garage door behind the camera. That provided us with plenty of daylight and a blast of cold air. The first ambrotype, pictured here, is the one used in the magazine.
Here's a link to the magazine article: http://www.indianapolismonthly.com/features/Story.aspx?ID=1696255
This took some planning when I decided to make these photographs. Setting up to use the wet plate process takes some time. I had a limited amount of time since I knew the light would rake across the bricks for just a few minutes. Cleaning, coating, sensitizing and exposing the glass plate took a total of about 10 minutes. The timing worked out perfectly.
3 wet plate still lifes. One of the things I love about the wet plate process is the way it renders certain colors. It is practically blind to orange and yellow. The 3 apples were yellow. The other fruit still life is a cherry, lemon and orange.
These are some of the beautiful prehistoric native American artifacts from the Townsend collection which I photographed. It was an educational experience and an honor to be able to spend time with these pieces. My favorite piece was a birdstone (the second photo in this series), but unfortunately I couldn't outbid the lucky person who spent $100,000 to get it.
I'm offering another wetplate collodion workshop to be held on December 3 & 4 in Indianapolis. The cost is $400 for the 2 day workshop. Please contact me for more information.
I'm looking for participants for the next wetplate workshop in Indianapolis at the Stutz building. To be held on October 22-23. The cost is $400 for the 2 day workshop. Everything to make images is supplied. Thanks.
The many possibilities of the photographic medium have long intrigued me. The virtually endless discoveries to be made. A photograph should leave the viewer with questions. There should be an element of mystery, of depth, of hidden layers. Still photography gives the viewer the time to explore. It plays to the voyeur in all of us.
During the mid 1980's photographer/artist Dale Bernstein had the privilege of working with some of the world's great photographers including Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Horst P. Horst, Arnold Newman and Robert Mapplethorpe among others. For the last 20 years the New York born Bernstein has operated his own commercial studio in the midwest working for a large variety of corporate clients and advertising agencies. Over the past 15 years he has been practicing the wet plate collodion process. He has shown his work in several galleries including the George Eastman House in 2001. He also authored the article "The Wet Plate Collodion Process" in View Camera Magazine (July/August 1999) and "Searching for Watkins" in PHOTOVISION (November/December 2003). In September 2011 his work was featured in the British publication, FUZION MAGAZINE http://www.fuzionmagazine.co.uk/ . His book COLLODION TRAVELOGUE is available at: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/765627
ALL IMAGES ARE COPYRIGHT ©2011 DALE BERNSTEIN
