winterjourney

[winterjourney]

22 April 2024 - Camera Obscura

I am building a mid-1800s camera. A camera obscura, to be accurate. I hope to recreate the methods by which the earliest known photographic images were created by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in the late 1820s. We are approaching the 200th anniversary of his oldest known camera photograph.

The camera is built by hand - no power tools. As I figure out the structure, I temporarily tape the pieces in place. If they work, I'll glue them in place.

Today, I set my focusing window in place. It works! I took it onto my porch, pointed it across my yard, then took photos of what I saw on the focusing window. I flipped the images so you can see them right-side up.

In theory, this contraption will enable me to use other early photographic methods. Stay tuned!

#nicephore #niepce #traditional photography #daguerreotype #camera obscura #heliograph #alternative photography

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2024. 7. April - An Interesting Experiment: Leica Infrared Photography

Hard to believe, but I'm now the proud owner of a Leica D-Lux Typ 109 camera. I'm learning how to use it. Besides being capable of infrared imagery, it's finest feature is being able to turn off the automatic features and use manual features to set the f-stop, shutter speed, and ISO. It's like a real camera!

#infrared #leica #vermont #landschaften #forest #landscape

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Danae - Mixed media on panel, ca. 1990 - 18 x 18 in/45x45 cm

Study for a larger, unfinished work

#artists on tumblr #klimt #jugendstil #danae

[winterjourney]

5. January 2024 - Unfinished painting in oil with metal leaf on canvas

I began working on this large canvas a long time ago. It started off in Alaska, has been revised in multiple places in California, and is now with me in Vermont. It's a large work - 25x50 in/63.5x127 cm.

I haven't touched it in at least twenty years. I think I'll finish it this year.

Hey! Maybe it's my masterpiece! It has all my obsessions in it, after all: Gustav Klimt, redheads, and penguins.

Note: finishing and signing it would constitute my angry reaction to all the soulless AI garbage I'm now seeing everywhere.

#artists on tumblr #penguin #klimt #redhead #vienna #vienna secession #wiener secession #jugendstil

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2. January 2024 - I Own This Glass Negative

Every once in a while, I search for antique glass negatives on eBay. Typically, the seller shows bad images taken with a smartphone - and of negative images which are hard to base a decision on. In this case, I decided a collection of 4x5 inch glass plate negatives - taken by an unknown, amateur photographer - was worth buying.

I was right this time. This one image, by itself, made me happy about buying the lot. Look at the size of that hat!

#traditional photography #victorian #circa 1900 #glass negative

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10. January 2024 - A Fine Example of Victorian - What, Exactly?

I had to own this.

The seller of this ca. 1870s ferrotype (tintype) thought it was a feminine-looking man. I disagree. You don't need to watch many films from Germany's Weimar years to know this is a woman. The hair is pulled back and slicked down in a way men didn't do in the Victorian era.

An actress in a role? An amusing inside joke? A gift for a Special Person? A statement of some sort? Feel free to make up your own interpretation of this fascinating image.

Again, I had to own this.

#victorian #traditional photography #ferrotype #tintype #androgynous

[winterjourney]

2.February 2024 - Daguerreotype, ca. 1845-55.

According to the hallmark stamp in the upper left corner, this daguerreotype plate was produced in France by the Gaudin brothers in Paris. I spent time restoring this very weathered photograph. It needed and deserved it.

At a certain point, I decided to stop and let its 180 years of damage speak for itself.

You can make out the faint curved marks where a long-gone brass frame would've been. Also: the copper in the lower left corner where the silver coating has rubbed off.

This flawed but wonderful image was created during the first decade or so from the announcement of the daguerreotype process. A small plate of metal 3.25 x 2.75 inches with the image of an unknown woman, possibly taken when Poe and Chopin were still alive - these things get to me, you know?

Good luck to all of us this year.

B. Stephen Stockwell

#victorian #daguerreotype #paris #traditional photography

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2023. 20 November - Edgar Allan Poe: First Drawing

I've been thinking I really, REALLY need to do an oil painting of Poe in a landscape - with a ruined chateau behind him. Earlier this week, I sat down and made a sketch. This is how it starts. Stay tuned for sporadic updates.

Best wishes to all of you - B. Stockwell.

#poe #drawing #artists on tumblr #zeichnung #edgar allan poe

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15 November 2023 - Carte de Visite; Australia ca. 1865

I saw this on eBay. I bought it because: I had to!

#carte de visite #australia #victorian

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Sylvia Plath with her two children, Nicholas and Frieda (1962)

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12 September 2023: Ambrotypes from My Collection of Antique Images. Ninth-plate size (2"×2½ inches/5x6.35 cm)

Unknown faces with no documentation save the lone woman described as "Lucy Jane/June Cross - Charles Carter Grandmother."

I continue to be astonished by the fact of these century and a half-old images having survived - to wind up with me, here in Vermont.

#traditional photography #ambrotype #victorian #1800s

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9 September 2023 - Dead Piano Mouse II: Skull

These are two versions of a cyanotype of the bones of a mouse found behind a piano in my house. The first image is the original cyanotype. The second is the final, tea and coffee toned image.

7.5 x 8 inches/19x20 cm

#cyanotype #sepia #traditional photography #artists on tumblr #skull #mouse

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7.September 2023 - Newport, Vermont: Infrared Photographs

The temperature was very hot. We are experiencing a heat wave, complete with heat and humidity warnings - a perfect time for infrared photography! I fried my brains out but, Golly!, look at the photographic results!

#vermont #landscape #newport #memphremagog #infrared

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2023 - 25 August. Cyanotype: Dead Piano Mouse (8x8 in/2020cm)

A few days ago, a desk was delivered to my house. A massive player piano had to be moved to get the desk in. In sweeping behind the piano, there were things like a ballpoint pen, ping pong balls, a cat toy, coins, and so on.

In the dustpan, I noticed what turned out to be a tiny skull from a long-gone mouse. Also, an assortment of tiny, fragile bones.

I set the remains on a sheet of cyanotype paper and exposed it. This is the result. I find it poignant and fascinating, but that's what things have been like these days.

#skeleton #bones #cyanotype

[winterjourney]

2023 - August: Anthotype Made from Powdered Hibiscus Flowers.

A test with a fern and a maple leaf. The exposure time in erratic Vermont sun was two weeks. The accompanying photos show the steps involved. Note: the emulsion would also make a good tea.

#traditional photography #anthotype #hibiscus #newport #vermont #artists on tumblr #purple #barr hill gin

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2023 - 9.August; Cyanotype Paper: Old, Outdated, but Usable

A short time ago I discovered a batch a paper I'd prepared for making cyanotypes. It was at least two years old. Fresh cyanotype paper is a faint lime green. It had turned dark blue - almost black.

Well, I exposed it for the better part of an hour. It worked! I toned it in a solution of tea and coffee for several hours to shift it from blue. The coffee? Ethiopian Sidamo from 802 Coffee - Vermont!

This is why we should never throw out expired photographic material. Dairy products and meat? Yes. Impossibly lost cyanotype paper? No.

#cyanotype #fern #traditional photography #vermont #artists on tumblr #coffee #Vermont

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2023 - 24.July: Three Cyanotypes

I discovered some very old paper I'd prepared for making cyanotypes. Using recent images and hourlong exposures, I was able to use my "expired" paper. I toned the images by soaking them in very strong Ethiopian Sidamo coffee from Vermont's 802 Coffee Company. When it's time to tone cyanotypes, I use the finest ingredients!

#traditional photography #vermont #newport #cyanotype #landscape #landschaften #artists on tumblr