Artists & Alchemists

I came across this and thought it worthy of sharing. When I first started working with historic photographic processes about seven years ago, there really weren't that many people working in these antiquated ways. It is heartening to see the population of photographers employing old tactile chemical processes grow by leaps and bounds since then. Interest is evident not only by the growing ranks of artists practicing the black arts, but also by the numbers of documentaries produced about artists working in with said processes. Artists & Alchemists is one such feature and includes artists Sally Mann, Chuck Close, Adam Fuss, John Coffer, Mark Osterman, France Scully Osterman, Irving Pobboravsky, Mark Kessell, Jayne Hinds Bidaut, and Jerry Spagnoli. The trailer looks awesome and I am eagerly anticipating its release sometime in 2011.

Supportively,
hf

Resurrection...

"It's alive!"  Image from Frankensteinia

Well, we’re back! It’s been more than a few years since the laboratorium closed it’s proverbial doors due to geographical distance and other obligations, but our commitment to preserving and promoting the photographic processes of yesteryear has never wavered. Even though Jenn and I are now 800 miles apart and resurrecting the lab as it was before is not possible at the moment, we have realized we could still do something. We could start with something manageable that could be done despite the miles and see where it takes us. In that spirit, we have decided to join the world of blogging and do our best to stay abreast of what is happening in the photographic process, film, paper, and artist book world and share that with you, gentle readers.

We hope to use this forum to share our musings as well as compelling projects and work contemporary artists are creating using antiquated processes, any opportunities that may be of interest to those who work with these processes, intriguing historical notes and images, and of course, our own projects and experiments from time to time – and anything else that somehow pertains to obsolete ways of working and tickles our fancy! (We will do our best to stick primarily to photographic processes, but our interests are vast and sometimes expand to other antiquated technologies. On occasion, we do find ourselves focused on something else, but rest assured, it will probably be old, and it will be delightful!) We hope you will follow us, and most of all, we hope you will find some inspiration here.

Experimentally,

hf