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Graham Ward
Rendition
I have been photographing the world around me for nearly 18 years. Starting with a 35mm camera, I soon felt that there should be more to photography than merely the use of conventional papers, film, and developers. I always loved the mood and feeling of the earlier printmakers such as Mathew Brady and Julia Margaret Cameron, so I decided to learn everything I could about photography, including developing formulas, building cameras, and working with unconventional printing processes, such as VanDyke and Cyanotype.
Three years ago I started making glass plate negatives from long forgotten formulas. It took two years and many failures to finally get it right. Once I succeeded in making glass plate negatives, I realized I was no longer restricted to any particular film size or shape. That was the moment that I started building cameras in many forms to suit the subject matter I was photographing. Now I feel I have entered the most exciting phase of printmaking.
My photographs are contemporary images using mid-19th century processes. Dry plate photography is the process of coating a glass plate with a light sensitive emulsion. I make my own emulsions according to long forgotten formulas, rarely if ever used today. Each glass plate negative is exposed in a hand made camera, developed and contact printed onto archival paper coated with either Cyanotype or Vandyke formulas.
Cyanotypes are one of the first photographic printing processes used in the mid 1800s, it is an iron based formula which gives the prints its distinctive Prussian blue colour and also makes the prints one of the most archival of all the photographic printing processes. Vandyke prints were also developed in the mid 1800s and use a silver based formula giving the final print a rich, chocolate brown colour. These prints are also extremely archival.
I use contact printing, which means that the size of the negative will be the size of the print. The glass negative is placed directly onto paper coated with one of the light sensitive formulas and exposed to ultraviolet light for up to one hour. The technique of using glass plate negatives has been around since mid-19th century but is rarely used today. The image produced from using a glass plate negative is unlike any other. It produces a sharp, detailed image that exudes a mood that only the viewer can interpret. These printing processes truly represented the feeling and mood of the images I envision.
All images are taken in South Eastern Nova Scotia from 2006 – 2009.
Rendition
I have been photographing the world around me for nearly 18 years. Starting with a 35mm camera, I soon felt that there should be more to photography than merely the use of conventional papers, film, and developers. I always loved the mood and feeling of the earlier printmakers such as Mathew Brady and Julia Margaret Cameron, so I decided to learn everything I could about photography, including developing formulas, building cameras, and working with unconventional printing processes, such as VanDyke and Cyanotype.
Three years ago I started making glass plate negatives from long forgotten formulas. It took two years and many failures to finally get it right. Once I succeeded in making glass plate negatives, I realized I was no longer restricted to any particular film size or shape. That was the moment that I started building cameras in many forms to suit the subject matter I was photographing. Now I feel I have entered the most exciting phase of printmaking.
My photographs are contemporary images using mid-19th century processes. Dry plate photography is the process of coating a glass plate with a light sensitive emulsion. I make my own emulsions according to long forgotten formulas, rarely if ever used today. Each glass plate negative is exposed in a hand made camera, developed and contact printed onto archival paper coated with either Cyanotype or Vandyke formulas.
Cyanotypes are one of the first photographic printing processes used in the mid 1800s, it is an iron based formula which gives the prints its distinctive Prussian blue colour and also makes the prints one of the most archival of all the photographic printing processes. Vandyke prints were also developed in the mid 1800s and use a silver based formula giving the final print a rich, chocolate brown colour. These prints are also extremely archival.
I use contact printing, which means that the size of the negative will be the size of the print. The glass negative is placed directly onto paper coated with one of the light sensitive formulas and exposed to ultraviolet light for up to one hour. The technique of using glass plate negatives has been around since mid-19th century but is rarely used today. The image produced from using a glass plate negative is unlike any other. It produces a sharp, detailed image that exudes a mood that only the viewer can interpret. These printing processes truly represented the feeling and mood of the images I envision.
All images are taken in South Eastern Nova Scotia from 2006 – 2009.