Illumon

As I sit and wait my time passes.
It sneaks away before I can take it and make it mine.

My hands were freezing, it must’ve been something like 2°C and I was wearing summer clothing, forgot my gloves. I could hear rabbits squeeking around me and running through the bushes. I actually went there to shoot something completely different. I forgot the time as I was shooting, climbed up a small hill following a fenced path and took this final shot. It was quite serene and time seemed to have stopped. Behind me were factories and refineries working 24/7.

There are still silent places in the Netherlands.

A while ago I visited a small exhibition of Daguerreotypes in the dutch photographic museum. Not so much for the way the images were composed or what they contained. Most of them are well thought out portraits with lots of symbolism and a romantic feeling to them, which gets a tad boring after a while. What made them interesting to me was that these daguerrotypes give a unique view into the past. I had a hard time to realize that these are actually photographs, not paintings. The way the photographers composed and used light in their images was so much like a painting that it is quite confusing. I especially enjoy landscapes which were done with daguerreotypes. The world looked so much different then. It is also stunning to see how photography and art were already intertwined right from the start. Which is quite ironic as it took quite some time for photography to be officially recognized as a form of art.

An daguerreotype

Perhaps you don’t know what a daguerreotype is, to keep it short it is officially the oldest known type of photography and development of a fixed image yet. Every daguerreotype is unique as you could not reproduce it like you can make prints of a normal negative or digital image nowadays. The image was fixed on a sheet of silver and copper, most of the time not larger than a postcard, that has been prepared by the photographer himself to become lightsensitive. After it was exposed the image would become visible by putting the plate in a box with heated mercury. The evaporating mercury would react to the image making it visible. But the image was so sensitive that even touching it would damage it. To counter this the plate had to be put in a sealed box right after the process was finished, this is typical for a daguerrotype. Better ways of fixing the image were developed over time but a daguerreotype always belongs in a frame or housing, sealed away safely.

The material gives the daguerreotype a quite unique appeal. The resolution is quite high, usually it is the fact that things moved the sharpness lacks but you can’t count or see dots within the image. The images if stored correctly will never wither either, they will always keep their same look and contrast. Then there is this slightly shiny feel to it, if you can look at the image from different angles you actually see the negative of it while in the correct angle you see it as a positive image.

The daguerrotype was typically used to make portraits of people. The subject had to sit still for quite a while, so special chairs were developed so the neck and head would stay fixed in one position. Studios were built on top of roofs and mirrors were used to get the correct lighting.

So why am I babbling about daguerreotypes? Well the dutch photographic museum has a website since 2004 (which I never heard of till today) called the Daguerreobase. You can find and add all kinds of information on daguerrotypes. I hope it will grow slowly so I can see more old images of landscapes.

Yes! I’ve been waiting for a new Eels album for a while actually but unfortunately I have to wait a bit longer till the 2nd of June. Ugh… in the meantime I’ll be listening to Fresh Blood, one of the tracks of their new album. In case you wonder what Hombre lobo means, it’s something like Man wolf aka werewolf. Typical if you listen to the howling in Fresh blood, rock on!

Eels on myspace

A buoy and a tree / L. Moers – ©2009

Sometimes a title distracts from what a photo shows. So my apologies, no title for this one.

I recently ordered some photobooks, one is ‘Peru’ by Robert Frank and the other which I’m still waiting for is William Eggleston’s guide… can’t really wait for that one actually.

I’ve got about 8 prints in the making including some of Nightlife Aquarium.

I’ve finally started working on a one of the many concepts I thought up for a series of photos. The series will be about looking at parties on locations (mainly restaurants and bars) and the fact that many of these have large windows displaying their customers (like stores displaying their products) to the outside viewer to show how comfortable, intimate and fun it is inside. Creating its own small dimension the environment where the party takes place looks like a fish tank which you can pleasantly observe as all the people inside interact with eachother or mind their own business. Many stories unfold while time seems to fly by in a faster pace outside.

Of course this photo does not contain people as it was a test, this fish tank is empty. But I found it worthy enough to put online and show the direction I want to go.

I do have the equipment here to setup a (amateurish) black and white darkroom but still haven’t got myself to start making some room to set it up. An old Meopta enlarger I got for free and a free 35mm Kreuznach Schneider lens which I picked up at the local photostore. I miss some frames to hold different types of negatives and most importantly a lightbulb…

It would be amazing to start making my own prints and at least develop my own negatives but it takes time to do it right, time which I didn’t have lately. With all the digital equipment nowadays the darkroom is slowly dying out and being replaced by computers with Photoshop and similar applications.

I’ve only been in a darkroom a couple of times to make my own black and white and colour prints, which I didn’t fare too well in being a first timer with little to no guidance. Still it was amazing to see your print slowly develop in the chemical soup and move it around in it… *sigh*

Here is a set of large format photos of darkrooms by Richard Nicholson, some of these have already met their unfortunate demise.

Darkrooms by Richard Nicholson

Hello, welcome to my renewed website where I will present myself, blog and save the latest things I’ve found on the web. Ok it’s not done yet as I still need to work on a design for it but at least the basics are working. The design will be another challenge I will start working on soon. Just to start off here’s a photo I shot not too long ago. I shot it after being inspired by photos I saw by Dana Lixenberg at an exhibition in the Dutch photo museum in Rotterdam called The Last Days Shishmaref

Shishmaref is a small island that is part of Alaska with a small Inupiaq community (eskimos is a generic term you could use). They are one of the first victims of global warming as the island is slowly being swallowed by the sea. Thanks to the rise of the temperature the permafrost that holds the island together is melting, the ice in the winter is unpredicatable and the storms that hit the coast have free passage and take away large chunks of the island. This threatens the existence of a community that tries to keep up a traditional way of life. It has become clear now that they can’t stay on the island anymore and have to relocate their community to the mainland.

I found it a fascinating story to see how these people live and how much contradictions there are on the island. Their lives are in many ways alien to our (or at least my) comfortable lifestyle. The island itself is a mess as trash is not being removed and recycling is more done out of necessity then to preserve the environment. I did not find that too surprising considering the harsh conditions and my previous experiences while travelling to the North West of the USA and Canada myself. Still there are a lot of similarities as well as you can see that the luxuries of modern life are slowly entering the traditional society.

Last days of shishmaref is available on DVD but there’s also a book available, which I can fully recommend.

Check out The Last days of Shishmaref.