Hand tinted tomato and lemon.

I always preferred sketches and drawings, never liked painting or colouring, but I'm really enjoying this:

4x5 ambrotype

4x5 ambrotype

RHA exhibition and Lith printing.

RHA Gallery

Last Wednesday I had a pleasure to take part in a photographic tour, lead by Amelia Stein, organised every year, during the Annual Exhibition in RHA gallery. (27 May - 09 August)

It's a good occasion to meet fellow photographers and discuss work, sizes, presentation/framing issues and as always having a chat about digital versus analogue.

I have a pleasure to present this little lith print there, this year:

                           

Waiting for Z.

This is a part of a series of pictorial landscapes of Wicklow Mountains. I've started it in 2012, and came back to printing it in April this year. My motivation for undertaking this project again was an upcoming exhibition in Galerie Lisette (where I decided to show it) and the fact that the above image was chosen for the RHA Exhibition.

Untitled

The whole series can be viewed  on my web site - here. It is on ongoing project so there should be more prints soon.

These lith prints were created with use of mostly colour holga negatives (and some B&W). I've used Rollei Vintage developer and Fomatone Classic Matt paper.

The exhibition in the Galerie Lisette, Enniskerry, was held in May, but most of these prints stayed in the Gallery and they are there, available for view and purchase.

Lith printing is one of the alternative photographic techniques, invented in 1970s. In this process a negative is heavily overexposed onto regular or ‘lith’ dedicated paper and developed in highly diluted lith developer. Prints are not developed to completion but snatched and stopped at the right time, which is crucial for the look of the image.  The results may vary from very detailed to very grainy, painterly and colourful (from pink to orange to brown).

Each print is very unique and it is very difficult to achieve repeatable results due to quick exhaustion of the developer. The technique was made popular mainly by works of music photographer Anton Corbijn.

Tinted Pear

This is my first attempt of hand tinting a collodion image. 

I've been interested in the subject of hand colouring black and white and collodion photographs for a long time, but somehow there was always something more important on the way. 

And it really can't be easier to start!

For a quick trial I got myself a set of 12 Faber Castell soft pastels in Art & Hobby shop and gave it a try. I was a bit surpriced that the effect is so soft and weak, and it took a moment until I started to see any results. The image I've chosen for a test was a bit flat and overexposed and color actually made it much nicer.

I quite like the visible brush strokes here, I've removed them later and the result was more ordinary. Anyway it is very easy to remove the colour, even unintentionally.. 

Looking forward to further tests.

New studio.New resolutions.

I haven't been on this site too often recently, (-only 3 posts last year), but I really hope to change it now.
Last year I was mainly busy as a first time mother, but also trying to organise some workshops and new working space. We had to reorganise our house, for the new arrival and my previous studio was sucrificed. Orginising a new one took a little bit of time - I've been looking for some space to rent and considering an option of building one. (In the meantime I had no place and time for photography (!))

As it befits architects we went for the second option and together with Lubor we designed and constructed a little studio for me, in our garden.
It measures 3.6 x 2.1m  (internal) and it comprises all what I need for wet and dry work. There's nothing fancy, just a dry and wet table with ordinary kitchen sink, and some storage. It has two windows with darkening option. There are still some electrical works ongoing, and some improvements need to be done, but basicaly it's tested and it works well. I am very happy with it!

The plan is to work hard in it this year :) I'd like to go back to the techniques I've already started to work with a while ago, but haven't got the chance to get deeper in it, try new techniques and materials....
I hope the readers will go back to checking this blog for some interesting reading.

I am always interested in somebody's working space, especially photographer's space, so for those who has a similar interest I enclose some photographs of the new studio and how it was builded.