Blog
Articles and opinions from the world of photographic collections.
Shooting on Glass
Monday, May 14, 2018 - 12:15
Dry Plate Negative from Debbie Adele Cooper's Shooting on Glass master class at Street Level Photography Glasgow. Image (c) Debbie Adele Cooper
To coincide with 'Reflections On A Glass Plate' Symposium in London on Thur 17 May, 2018, we invited one of the speakers to tell PCN members how a UK collection inspired her to go on a two-year journey to develop a unique process for making contemporary glass plates. A process she now teaches.
Debbie Adele Cooper is an artist, curator, participation designer and educator moving between digital and analogue, and seeking to create new conversations between the past and today. Her work as a glass plate (dry plate) photographic artist has involved creative response to, and participation with, UK photographic collections and archives including a residency at WW Winter Photographers.
Shooting on Glass by Debbie Adele Cooper
I photograph on glass plate, I love it. I love the magical quality that an image has when on seen on glass, and I love it when someone on one of my workshops makes and then shoots their first plate. This process took me years to master, but each time I make a plate I still learn something new.
5 years ago I had no idea what Dry Plate photography was or that photographs on glass existed. It was 2013 I was running a mass participation photography project for FORMAT International Photography Festival, asking people to send in photos of their working day, creating a photo map of our collective working day. I was sent a photo of people at work in a photography studio in 1900s, I was blown away by this image and contacted the submitter right away. They told me that they were a photography studio in Derby and had been photographing on Midland Road since 1850s and they had a vast collection of images which I was welcome to see, I went to visit W W Winter Ltd that very day.
They showed me around their purpose built studio and showed me some of their vast collection. On this visit, for the very first time I held a negative from the W W Winter collection, and it was also the first time I'd ever seen or heard of glass plate negatives. As a child in the 1980s I'd photographed on film, and learnt black and white processing at college, but never seen or heard of the dry plate process. I was enchanted by the glass plate as an object and wanted to know more.
I visited Winter's regularly and asked if I could be their artist in residence, happily they agreed and I raised funds from Arts Council England and Derby City Council to enable me to create a public engagement project and exhibition in response to their collection. As part of my project I had set myself the task of making my own glass plates in response to their collection, after all how hard could it be? People photographed on plate for over 100 years and I'd done darkroom work before...
Within the first few weeks of the residency I started learning and experimenting with the dry plate shooting on glass process. I soon realised that I had completely underestimated the difficulty of the glass plate negative process; having experience of darkroom analogue photography I was under the naïve assumption that the dry plate process would not be a big leap in skill. When Winter's were photographing on plate they were able to buy these ready made from Ilford and Kodak, but as the bought plates are no longer available, the only option was to make my own.
I took part in a weekend course but photographer teaching the process was creating glass plates with an aesthetic that did not rely on an even coverage of the gelatine and emulsion, which created a messy aesthetic he liked, but made it impossible for me to create a polished finish which was equivalent to the vintage factory made plates I was trying to recreate. To achieve the finish I needed I had to spend much more time in the darkroom and much more money on materials.
I had been running a call out at the same time via social media and kept getting participants in to the studio to photograph but getting let down by the process; I would take the photograph, develop the negative and then the image would disappear or blacken during fixing, or the emulsion would slide off the negative. This was incredibly frustrating for myself and participants who had come to be photographed. I contacted photographers, emulsion companies, looked on photography forums, but the problem while eventually fixed took nearly 2 years of solid work in the studio to create a process unique to me that creates the professional quality plates I was trying to achieve. I did get there eventually, making my own plates in response to the Winter's collection.
One of the biggest problems in making contemporary plates is that all 2mm sheet glass available in the UK has a silicone layer is coated on the glass to stop things sticking to it. Next time you see rain on a window, look at the water beading, its the silicone coating that makes this happen, great for car windows terrible for photography. Getting a 'tooth' on the glass was my challenge, but eventually I got there, there are a range of ways to get the silicone off, mainly it is either nasty chemicals or abrasion. Once that is done, gelatin and then photographic emulsion can be coated on to the plate, this is then left to dry in the dark, and if packaged well, and kept dry and cold can be used any time in the future. I now make and shoot plates regularly, and also test old plates from time to time. I still have plates from 4 years ago that shoot as if they were made yesterday.
People often ask me why dry plate rather than wet? The great thing about dry is that the process freed photographers from the studio, like sheet film it can be shot anywhere and stored for many years of future use. Then of course the next question is why not use sheet film? Well, apart from the love of making my own plates from scratch, glass has no grain, and can be enlarged, and enlarged, and enlarged, I've seen 8x10 plates in the Winter collection that we have zoomed in on a 1cm section of and been able to read the hand writing on a shop sign, this really does feel like time travel, like a real moment was captured, I'm looking through time not at a grainy photo. The other great thing about glass plate is that (as the Winter collection is proving) it may last 100s of years; digital, film and paper degrade, photographing on glass may still be the only stable archivable photography.
I'll be talking more about this process, my journey and the W W Winter collection on 17 May 2018 at 'Reflections On A Glass Plate' Symposium (a collaboration between The UAL Photography and the Archive Research Centre (PARC), The Past on Glass Project at Sutton Archives, The Edward Reeves Archive Project and The Photographic Collections Network).
Book a free place at 'Reflections On A Glass Plate' Symposium, Thur 17 May at LCC London
Learn more...
Debbie's next dry plates course runs 16 - 17 June at Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow
Read more about Debbie's WW Winter Collection Artist Residency
Visit: https://debbieadelecooper.com/
Follow: @debbie_cooper
Got a suggestion for a blog post or featured collection? Get in touch by emailing info@photocollections.org.uk
Images from Debbie Cooper's Artist Residency project with W W Winter Photographers (operating in Derby since 1852):
Left image from dry plate negative by Debbie Adele Cooper, Right image from dry plate negative from W W Winter Collection
During Debbie's Artist Residency, business cards were made from photos from the WW Winter archive. This formed part of a city-wide call out for participants. The cards featured many different designs (20 in total) to inspire people to swap and collect them. The info on the reverse was translated into a range of languages to inspire people to swap and collect them.
Left image from dry plate negative by Debbie Adele Cooper, Right image from dry plate negative from W W Winter Collection
W W Winters at the Alexandra Rooms, courtesy of WW Winter Collection
The very first W W Winter Photographers glass plate; courtesy of W W Winter Collection
All images from W W Winter Photographers Collection © W.W.Winter Ltd
Featured Collection: Magnus Jackson
Wednesday, March 7, 2018 - 13:30
Tintype made by James Herd at a workshop led by Brittonie Fletcher, The Bean Shop Perth, 2018 © Paul Adair
Paul Adair is Collections Officer and curator of Magnus Jackson: Photographer Exhibition at Perth Museum and Art Gallery. He looks back on the exhibition and offers some insight into the person and practice behind this 2500+ image-strong collection, and discusses how Jackson's images of Victorian Perth inspired contemporary practice. Paul is a member of the Photographic Collections Network.
How did you become involved in working with photographic collections?
I started my museum career as a photographer/technician whose responsibilities included conventional darkroom hand-printing of Magnus Jackson's glass plate negatives. I have moved into a curatorial role now and am currently taking the Graduate Diploma/MLitt. in Museum and Gallery Studies (part-time) at the University of St Andrews.
Could you tell us about Magnus Jackson and the collection itself?
Magnus was the son of a carver and gilder in Perth and took lessons in wet plate collodion photography during a period spent in London during the 1850s. By 1860 he had established a timber-built photographic studio on Marshall Place overlooking the South Inch.
Magnus had an active civic role for much of his life and served as a town councillor. He was also an active member of the Perthshire Society for Natural Science.
Perth Museum and Art Gallery hold around 2,500 glass negatives produced by the Jackson studio. He had two sons and one daughter who all played a role in the family photographic business. His son Magnus (junior) was particularly active and many of the plates in the collection can be attributed to the younger Magnus who carried on the business after his father's death in 1891 until his tragic suicide in 1897.
The collection is notable for the range of work undertaken and the quality of its execution. As a well known public figure and with a robust character, Magnus senior tackled subjects as diverse as a delicate lily study to a slaughter house interior.
His particular passion was for making tree portraits and he would wait for hours in expectation of suitable light or a lull in the breeze.
How has the collection been cared for and has its care presented any challenges for Perth Museum?
Much of the collection is stored in archive quality housings though there is still room for improvement. What is evident is the stability of the wet collodion negative without any noticeable deterioration in over 150 years. The practice of varnishing the plates no doubt contributes to their resilience. In my earlier days at Perth Museum printing direct from the negatives was the norm. Though a fan of genuine silver gelatin prints I don't miss the drudge of reprinting the same negative repeatedly. The extraordinarily fine grain and detail of the wet collodion negative is captured very well with high resolution scanning. This reveals a level of detail that would never have been appreciated in the original often contact printed albumen prints.
Why was the decision made to exhibit the collection alongside the work of five contemporary photographers?
I wanted to show that wet collodion photography is not dead. Indeed so called 'alternative' processes are enjoying a real revival of interest in recent years. Digital photography is great in many ways but I think many photographers miss the alchemy of darkroom work. There is still a magic to be found in watching a latent image appear by chemical reaction.
How do you think the collection has inspired other practitioners?
I hope that my approach of presenting the images in the recent Magnus Jackson exhibition as enlarged negatives will introduce the born digital generation to the joys of traditional analogue photography. Many younger people don't know what a negative is!
So what next?
Perth Museum has hosted enjoyable wet collodion and cyanotype workshops and we hope to offer more opportunities like this in the future.
I have chosen Magnus Jackson photographer as the subject for my MLitt dissertation. This will centre around a previously unstudied collection of Magnus Jackson's wet plate collodion negatives taken at Dupplin Castle near Perth. These have recently come to light from a private collection, the negatives having been packaged in straw and stored in a wooden crate for over 100 years.
Visit: http://www.culturepk.org.uk/museums-galleries/
Follow: @CPKMuseums
Paul is a member of the Photographic Collections Network; we hope to share some of his further research as it progresses.
If you have an idea for a blog post, please do get in touch: info@photocollections.org.uk
Instant Stories. Wim Wenders' Polaroids
Wednesday, February 14, 2018 - 11:45
Self portrait, 1975 © Wim Wenders Courtesy Wim Wenders Foundation
The PCN exhibition tour of 'Instant Stories. Wim Wenders' Polaroids' with the Head of Exhibitions at the Photographers' Gallery, Clare Grafik shed light on the challenges that arise from storing and exhibiting Polaroids.
The exhibition offered the rare opportunity to see previously unseen Polaroids taken in the 1970s and 1980s by the German filmmaker Wim Wenders. The Oscar Nominated director of films including Paris, Texas (1984) and Alice in the City (1974) suggests that he took over 12,000 Polaroids between 1973 and 1983 and that the format acted as a visual diary both on and off film location. 'Instant Stories' presented over 200 of Wenders' Polaroids including portraits of Dennis Hopper and Senta Berger as well as friends and family, behind-the-scenes images and street photography across Europe and the US.
Wenders explains his passion for Polaroids in his new book:
The entire Polaroid process (and procedure) has nothing to do with our contemporary experience, when we look at virtual and vanishing apparitions on a screen that we can delete or swipe to the next one. Then, you produced and owned ‘an original’! This was a true THING, a singular object of its own, not a copy, not a print, not multipliable, not repeatable. You couldn’t help feeling that you had stolen this image-object from the world. You had transferred a piece of the past into the present.
Do you have any comments about Wender's collection or advice on storing and exhibiting Polaroids generally? Join the forum discussion where Paul has shared his reflections on the exhibition and his own experience of shooting Polaroid.
To discover more, watch Wenders talk about his passion for polaroids here as part of Nowness' 'Photographers in Focus' series and the artist's book 'Instant Stories' that was published alongside the exhibition can be purchased here.
The National Portrait Gallery celebrates the centenary of the women's suffrage act
Friday, February 9, 2018 - 15:30
Emmeline Pankhurst's arrest at Buckingham Palace © National Portrait Gallery, London
Wednesday 7th February marked 100 years since the passing of the Representation the People Act, which saw thousands of British women gain the right the vote in general elections.
To celebrate this, the National Portrait Gallery are showcasing a special display entitled Votes for Women, as part of a year-long season of events, Rebel Women. The display will include a Collection of surveillance photographs of Suffragettes issued to the gallery by Scotland Yard in 1914. The photographs span from the mid-nineteenth century until the years after the vote was won and present portraits of some of the key figures in the campaign for women's suffrage.
Alongside Votes for Women, a complimentary display entitled Votes for Women: Pioneers will showcase portraits of Victorian pioneers of the 'Votes for Women' movement.
Votes for Women: Pioneers runs until 2nd December 2018 and Votes for Women runs until 13th May 2018.
The Rebel Women season runs until 1st January 2019. Find out more here.
The Olive Edis Archive at Cromer Museum
Monday, September 11, 2017 - 16:00
Sheringham Youth Theatre, Olive Edis
© Cromer Museum
Images by Olive Edis from Cromer Museum make up our home page featured collection for December 2017. Here you can find out more about Olive Edis and the museum.
In 2008 Alistair Murphy, the Curator at the Cromer Museum, received a phone call from a local collector asking if the museum would like to acquire a collection of work by a renowned local photographer. The collection, Murphy found, was that of Olive Edis. Perhaps best known for her photographs of the fishermen from the Sheringham and Cromer area, Edis first opened a studio with her sister, Katherine, on the local high street in 1905. The business swiftly developed, and studios in London followed, where the wealthy and famous were now the subjects. In 1914 she was made a fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.
In 1919 Edis was appointed by the Women’s Work Committee of the Imperial War Museum as an official photographer in Belgium and France, documenting women's role in the region including the nurses, the Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps (QMAAC) and their role across all areas affected by the Great War. These exceptional images can be seen on the IWM’s website.
Miss Hall photographed with a rabbit at a farm at Grange-le-Comte. Maintaining this farm was part of the post war reconstruction work of the Friends' War Victims Relief Committee (FWVRC). The farm later became their headquarters by Olive Edis © Imperial War Museum
As a professional female photographer, Edis broke new social ground - and she was also a technological innovator. She advanced the use of autochrome (being credited with producing the first colour photograph in Canada), and patented a device for viewing autochrome plates. At the same time, Edis was an astute businesswoman. As Cromer Museum’s Project Assistant Elizabeth Elmore points out, Edis knew from the start how to shape her brand, creating a variety of logos, branded boxes and frames, all with the studio name imprinted on them.
Cromer Museum’s collection of Edis’s photography is the largest in the world, with some 2000 images; the Imperial War Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Media Museum, Royal Collection Trust and the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Centre in Austin, Texas, also hold her work. Norfolk Museums have created a large digital archive of Edis’s work; a tag-cloud allows the visitor to search for images that include, for example, ‘beard’, ‘moustache’, or ‘lace’.
Alistair Murphy and Elizabeth Elmore have overseen a permanent exhibition display dedicated to Edis at Cromer Museum featuring her cameras, original prints alongside enlarged reproductions, lightboxes, and listening booths with extracts from Edis’ war journal. Outreach projects extend public engagement with her legacy further, including 3 films made in collaboration with Paston 6th Form College Media & Film students, a play with Sherrringham Youth Theatre (complete with selfie-taking breakdancing sequence) (main image), and a BBC programme with the photographer Rankin.