And Some Twenty More to Go!

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Working on the wood panels for the "Marinas" show.

© Flavio Martín Morante_2014_ Nikon P7000

I keep working on the panels for the summer show. I have some work yet to do, but we are going at good pace. That's the good thing about this miserable cold weather, it keeps me inside taking advantage of every scrap of time doing this, otherwise I will be out photographing which I really miss.

Kodak Moments

I keep running some tests, specially when it comes to exposure time I am still trying to get my head around the reciprocity failure.

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Pinhole paper negative converted to positive on PS. 8 x 10 inches. Taken with the "Talbot's Horse" 

© Flavio Martín Morante_2014

Meanwhile, the tree on the back of our house has proved to be a great subject since it's there available anytime! Also I been reading a lot on Josef Sudek lately, so some influenced inspiration is at play there.

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Pinhole paper negative converted to positive on PS. 8x10 inches. Taken with the "Talbot's Horse" 

© Flavio Martín Morante_2014

More testing to come, as soon as the weather allows me.

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Pinhole paper negative converted to positive on PS. 8x10 inches. Taken with the "Talbot's Horse" 

© Flavio Martín Morante_2014

Those Kind of Moments

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Pinhole paper negative and me at the studio with the "Talbot's Horse" © Flavio Martín Morante_2014

Nikon P7000

Back on 2010 as I was coming back to the States from Uruguay, the in-flight channel did have on the listing a documentary titled "It Might Get Loud" featuring guitar players Jack White (White Stripes), The Edge (U2) and Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) and their relationship with their craft and instruments. If you have seen the documentary you will understand what I will mention here but if you have not, watch the clip below and you will understand what this post is about. 

At the intro of the movie, you see Jack White on some rural front porch making a guitar right there; come on, watch the clip.

Anyway, if you saw it you may understand why I have to say that those couple of minutes still play loud on my head like they did back then thousands of feet above the earth. Seeing the man making that guitar made me feel admiration for it as I did for my Dad when I saw him building a weed eater using the engine of a blender but also made me think big time on my love for photography and today after 4 years of self learning everything I have been able to learn, I finally have my "Jack White moment" on the back of our house, when I finished building and took a picture with "Talbot's Horse", the camera I designed and built by myself. (First photo taken yesterday and "self-portrait"at the beginning of this post).

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Digital capture of the tree on the back of our house © Flavio Martín Morante_2014

Nikon P7000

I have to say that I am really happy since this means a lot, not only to have put myself to study a lot in order to get to this point understanding light above all but also to be able to share it today here. Somehow this is my "self graduation present" I am aware is just a pinhole camera but after a month designing it, making all the mathematical equations, finally putting it together and obtaining a half decent image with a 10 year old sheet of paper accidentally exposed and fogged, I cannot deny myself some satisfaction.

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Front/side and rear cover view of my homemade "Talbot's Horse" © Flavio Martín Morante_2014

Nikon P7000

I decided to name it "Talbot's Horse" in honor to Henry Fox Talbot and Horse because this thing is big. Made in order to be used with a film holder format of 8x10 inches, this is the biggest camera I have worked so far. Originally I thought to make it 11x14 but I wanted to be able to scan the negatives and the positive prints, so I reduced the size to a more standard fitting. On the below photograph, it can be seen a comparison between the film holder of this camera and the 4 x 5 film holder in which I started my own study of large format photography back in 2012.

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Camera's rear with 8 x 10 film holder and 4 x 5 film holder on top to establish size comparison 

© Flavio Martín Morante_2014 _Nikon P7000.

The camera has an only aperture of f416 and a normal focal length measuring 13 inches from the plate to the pinhole. I ended up making a shutter using a floppy disk, yes a floppy disk which opens and closes by the action of a release cable and the spring from the disk (see photo below).

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"Floppy disk" shutter's view closed (left) and open (right)

© Flavio Martín Morante_2014 _Nikon P7000.

For the first photograph I used something you may ask why someone will use that kind of ruined paper as it was this Kodak PolyFiber I have which has been exposed (see the white corners on the photograph), it is fogged and also around a decade old?. The reason for using it was first that I am waiting for a shipment of Arista EDU Grade 2 that I will be using for the paper negatives and the Ilford Multigrade Warmtone RC for the positives I will be making for the project I will be working on (and for which I built the camera) but also because I wanted to see how much of an image I will get on a piece of paper from which I knew all the cons I was confronting. The result is not a museum image, but to me meant that there is a long way ahead and I hope to share some successful steps on this path.

Will be back soon with more details as I go. (Hopefully the paper gets here soon and the weather improves in order to be outside without feeling miserable).

Cheers!

Short Trip to Uruguay

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Cerro Batoví, Tacuarembo- Uruguay

© Flavio Martín Morante_2004_ Nikon N80/ Fuji Superia 400

It was a nice surprise to come across in the past days with a post from the Center of Photography in Uruguay (Centro de Fotografía) which announced a new exhibit in the capital of Uruguay of a series of photographs that show many aspects of what Uruguay is through a well elaborated project was developed as part of a national initiative called "Paisaje Uruguay" (Uruguay´s Landscape). The photographs are great, as a testimony but also as a way of portray the country in other ways are not the typical "Uruguay for Export" type of images we are used to.

If you live on this side of the Equator, please take a look on the link below where you can see that Uruguay is more than Punta del Este, cannibal soccer players or legal marihuana. If you live down there and can make it to the exhibit, take a time to enjoy Uruguay in a different way. 

The link with the the photos and the info about the exhibit HERE.

Abstract Conversations

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Join me next week for another screening of art documentaries at the W. J Niederkorn Library of Port Washington. This time I will be presenting the movie : "Joan Mitchell, Portrait of An Abstract Painter".

Movie starts at 6PM and is free. Round table conversation will follow after the movie.

Also, do not miss to visit Gallery 224 on Port, where the show "Abstract Conversation" is in display. Visit gallery website for hours and more.

See you!

SUPERSIZE ME!

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At the studio © Flavio Martín Morante_2014

Nikon D200

The other reason for the absence is that I finally made the jump and started building my own 8 x 10 large format pinhole camera ( a big jump from the 4 x 5 format) using Brian J. Krummel's book as a guide source for it, despite that when it came to design I am using my "love for the Bauhaus school" as source of inspiration.

If you are looking into do your own pinhole I recommend it highly as it explains a lot and very well many of the so confusing aspects of building your own camera since it is more than just a simple box as many try to put it.

Why I started making it? There are 3 reasons for it which I will leave the long answer for when I finish it but goes from the fact of making it (and making it my own) to the fact that I want to use it on a project that hopefully helps me to master a process in which I did not start with the right foot but it have had me fascinated for the last 2 years: the paper negative.

So far, regarding the construction it has been a GREAT learning experience, and more enjoyable since I have NOT cut or hammered my fingers (yet), which according to Dawn it is a real achievement :)

Will be back. Until then...

Liquid Visions

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At the studio © Flavio Martín Morante_2014

Nikon D200

I have been really busy lately, reason why my absence on this space. Besides work, which is always good to be busy with, I been working a lot on my own projects. One is the fact that I will be doing a big show with my work "Marinas" (around 30-40 images) on June at Port's Gallery 224. The photographs I have chosen I am transferring them to wood panels, as the one seen above. It is a pretty simple process as I came to experiment, but one that requires a LOT of patience at the same time that asks of you to embrace all the pros and cons of the process and its materials.

By doing this the pictures acquire a new look, which can differ from the pretty nice silver gelatin print, but knowing from the starting point that this will happen and knowing that the process was chosen with strong reasons (which I will go more into it on the future), it becomes a pleasant experience to see how the wood (and its patterns) become part of the image.

The other thing that I found interesting about this process, something I did not think about it until the moment I started working on is that somehow it has the same magic that the darkroom work has on photography. To explain mayself I will give a little description on how this works.

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At the studio © Flavio Martín Morante_2014

Nikon D200

I have seen all the photographs selected for this project to show up slowly under the developer in the darkroom, which I always say is one of the most magical things about photography. Then while doing the wood transfer process, which requires you to create a "negative" or inverted image as a laser print, you place it on a wood panel that has been coated with a gel medium in order for the pigments on the print to be transferred into it. After drying time (usually 24hrs) the real work starts as you need to submerge the whole front of the wood panel in water in order to make the base of the paper to start dissolving as you gently rub with your fingers in order to make the image "appear" again, something that resembles the act of having the image come to life on the darkroom. I have to say it takes forever because you have to be careful of not rubbing too much and also you have to repeat the process several times as it is a little deceiving while the wood/paper is wet. Sometimes it takes few more hours before is enough dry for you to see how much residue has to be worked out of the picture yet. Still, even the scratches on the wood or even the textures on it become something that it is easily appreciated it as "happy accidents" as you are trying to create a unique object with all the imperfections that come with it.

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"The Ghost Sentinels" at the studio © Flavio Martín Morante_2013

Nikon D200

I have worked and finished already the first 6 panels and it is coming out good, so I am in good in order to have everything ready by June.