Despite the dire predictions of the death of analogue photography, there has been a noticeable resurgence of interest in non-digital, silver-based photography. With every ‘advance’ in photography, whilst speed and ease have been gained, a quality
—
both describable and indescribable—has been lost.
<p style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', Lucida, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">The daguerreotype was replaced by the faster wet-plate collodion ambrotype, which was subsequently replaced by the cheaper tintype. With each step, image detail and tonality declined. Salted paper printing was eclipsed by the albumen print, which was in turn abandoned in favour of gelatin-silver paper. Today, ink (digital prints) has replaced photography’s use of noble metals, most commonly silver, gold, or platinum/palladium. Once again, ‘ease of use’ has taken precedence over image quality and, arguably, stability (archival quality).?
In this weekend’s Discussion & Workshop, participants will experience the evolution of photography through numerous historical processes. Saturday will include a discussion of various ‘antiquated’ processes as well as demonstrations in cyanotype, salted paper printing, silver gelatin printing, albumen printing and wet-plate collodion (ambrotypes). At the end of the day, participants will collectively decide which printing process (cyanotype, salted paper or albumen) they would like to practise personally on Sunday.
<p style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', Lucida, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">The workshop will be held in English
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9 August 2015 | 12:00–14:00
Optional:
?”
Guided tour of the exhibition Handmade Photography with curator
Norbert Wiesneth
at the
Projektraum | PhotoWerkBerlin
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15 August 2015 | 10:00–17:00
?? Introduction, presentation of various historic photographic processes with?
David Puntel
16 August 2015 | 10:00–17:00
? “Hands-on practice with one historic printing process, including cyanotype, salted paper and albumen.” with
David Puntel
<p style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', Lucida, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">(All materials for the workshop are included)
?
