Houston alt experience highlights
Good morning all! What fun in Texas. Clay was an incredible host to close to 30 of us at his house. A bunch of alt listers were there such as Robert Cockrell, Rocky, Kerik (who flew in from CA!), Jeremy Moore, Marek (who is NOT short and dark like I thought he was but very tall and blondish--and adorable, too, heheheh), Lee Carmichael (who is very much a man and not a woman), Matt Magruder, Michael Mutmansky who DROVE in from PA, Mike Cassell, David Brown (5 who are working on a TX church documentary project documenting churches 100 yr old or more throughout the state) and others who may be on the list but lurk/don't post much. I drove in with Amy Holmes George from Nacogdoches where I was doing gum and mordancage workshops. She brought 8 of her students with, too, and they loved the feedback they got on their work. We saw some beautiful platinums, gums, silver prints, and wet plate collodion, among other lesser represented processes. In fact, between Kerik and Monte McCutchen (who flew in from NC!), we got to see HUGE wet plate collodion which kinda blew me away. Monte shoots with a 20x24 camera! Hold me back from learning another process. Kerik's wet plates are truly amazing--very meditative (but I want his gumoverpd palm trees). And learn from Monte--a large glass plate collodion does not travel well through the airport. What is even better is the stuff you pick up in chit chat and in doing--I thought I'd share to benefit those who couldn't stop life for a weekend and join us: 1. portfolioboxes.com to get custom made portfolio boxes 2. or Marek's use of a complimentary color to tone down a particular color in the mix--in other words with his yellow layer neg he may use a purple pigment to tone down a yellow....this was really effective in a gum he did of Antelope Canyon, where the area of light coming through the rocks was brilliantly red-orange in juxtaposition with the rest of the pic which was toned down with a green. Believe it or not, I have never done this with a gum print but it has great pictorial possibilities to accentuate particular areas of a gum print by a little judicious brushing. Marek's gums have taken a huge leap since I first saw them in a traveling portfolio. 3. or watching Clay use a roller with gum--I have used it before and found the brush far superior; HOWEVER, when I saw HIM roller on, I saw that he keeps rollering back and forth and hither and thither until the entire layer smooths out. I was rollering up to a point and not beyond and should have kept going. Which goes to prove that the old adage "it didn't work" is never proof that something, in fact, doesn't work if it does for someone else. There are a couple of Clay's gumoverplatinums I wanted to spirit away--one purposely grainy image of a high heeled woman's leg jutting into the side of the image, empty dark street park bench, and a couple of nighttime empty parking garage scenes. 4. or using my curved negs I brought with me under Clay's Amertech exposure unit--which I want to buy now :). This relates to Keith's question about someone giving him their curves for gum. I use a UVBL unit at home, and with Clay's light source we totally overexposed the blue layer, totally underexposed the red layer, and the yellow was just right. It was a great visual experience of how different light types vary and how they require different work flows, negatives, curves, and color negs, if you want to get that techy about it. 5. "Trophy" aluminum for wet plate or even tintype I would think... 6. Seeing Clay's darkroom, how he organizes it, his tools, etc. is always so instructive. We each craft our own space--his very organized and every inch utilized, mine very tornadoish. 7. Artistico is 4.5 stops of transmission density if used as a neg. 8. The fro has got to grow... etc. etc. including a few sentences that I can't read because of my terrible handwriting... I thank Clay for being such a gracious host! Chris Christina Z. Anderson Assistant Professor Photo Option Coordinator Montana State University CZAphotography.com
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