Jody Ake creates portraits, nudes, still lifes and
landscape images using the wet collodion process,
an historic photographic technique which involves using
a large format camera, glass plates, and hand-mixing all of the necessary chemicals for each and every exposure.
Invented in 1851, the method entails coating a glass plate with collodion, sensitizing the plate with silver nitrate and exposing the plate while it is still wet. The end result are ambrotypes, appearing on glass in the form of a negative until backed by black velvet, thus rendering the positive.
Ake says this about this series:
“I believe the portrait discloses more about the subject than what is found on the surface. The subject, either willingly or subconsciously, shows us more then they intends. The camera can see more than the naked eye, moving past our persona and catching a glimpse of who we really are.”
Poet, mystic, and spokesman for the Beat generation, also photographed his friends and lovers over the years. He made albums of these photos, with elaborate hand-written captions.
Fine-art photographer got silly with some friends and made a great series of impromptu portraits with her collection of vintage masks and her iPhone.
A new book features extraordinary glass-negative portraits from the recently rediscovered archive of little-known Polish photographer , who died in 1968. Her unnamed, unknown subjects of all ages look out at us like living history.
Paris-based artist combines quirky hand-cut paper masks with surreptitious photographs of strangers in city streets.