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Today I share an awesome conversation with the incredibly talented Markus Hofstätter, a Wet Plate Collodion photographer from Austria. Markus’ work is incredible in itself, and we’ll look at some of his stunning portraits later, but before that, we talk about his United Art Gallery project, which I’m proud to have also participated in.
As this is an interview, I don’t have our normal manuscript to share with you, but here are the bullet point notes that I wrote to give our chat some structure so that you can see what we talked about. More importantly, I’ll follow with a gallery of each of the images, mostly photographs, and one stunning painting, and I’ll also include some of the notes from the artists that Markus also provided. I’d like to thank Markus for his work pulling this together, but also I’d like to thank each of the artists, including Markus, for sharing their work with us in this way. I feel richer for having seen these images and reading the artists’ stories, and I hope you will too. First, here are the bullet points.
- Tell us about yourself, and how you got into photography?
- How did that lead to you starting to make wet plate collodion images?
- Tell us how you came about the idea for the United Art Gallery?
- Shortly we’re going to look at a selection of images, mainly from the Coronavirus Art gallery, but your Justice for All gallery is also very powerful and close to my heart. Please tell us a little about this as well…
- Let’s walk through the images that I selected to talk about, and tell us a little about each image…
- Walkthrough Markus’ images
You can see Markus’ own work here: https://www.mhaustria.com
Here too are some other social links:
https://instagram.com/mhaustriaf
https://facebook.com/mhaustria
Be A Part of the United Art Gallery
Visit the United Art Gallery is here: https://unitedart.gallery/
You can also submit your own work for consideration to be included in the gallery using the BE A PART OF IT link in the menu of the United Art Gallery website.
Here are the social links for the United Art Gallery too:
http://instagram.com/unitedartgallery/
https://facebook.com/unitedartgallery/
https://twitter.com/unitedartgalle1/
https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedartgallery/
Artists Photographs & Painting
Here are the seven artists’ images that we talk about in the interview.
Gym in the living room
Artist: Francesca Brecciaroli
Country: United Kingdom
Weblink: https://www.piccolinophotostudio.com
Description: My husband is obsessed with fitness and before COVID 19 he used to go to the gym several times a week before going to work. Here it is in a homemade gym doing his workout. The cat was interested too…
Alyssa as a Hero
Artist: Eric Retterbush
Country: USA
Website: https://www.ericretterbush.com
Description: A fitting portrait of my wife Alyssa who works as a nurse primarily with COVID-19 patients in Flagstaff Arizona. “5×7 Tintype created April 13th 2020”
Eric’s series was recently published by the Washington Post here.
Lockdown ballet
Artist: Gemma Griffiths
Country: United Kingdom
Weblink: https://www.gemmagriffithsphotography.co. uk
Description: My son is a ballet dancer. I wanted to try and capture these strange times at home with him. He continues his training using video lessons from his teachers.
Will It Ever Be the Same?
Artist: Gregory E. Roth
Country: USA
Weblink: https://www.Headghillie.com
Description: A salt print done during the Covid-19 pandemic shot on an iPhone.
Blue
Artist: Nayana LaFond
Country: United States
Weblink: https://www.nayanaarts.com
Description: 16″x20″ acrylic on canvas, painted during qurantine.
Nayana LaFond is an immunosuppressed artist currently quarantined and working in a home studio in Massachusetts about an hour outside of Boston. Nayana is a leukemia survivor and bone marrow transplant recipient with many underlying health conditions which put her at a very high risk of both contracting Covid19 and dieing from it. She has been producing work about her experiences as a patient for many years. When Covid19 happened her work began to reflect her feelings of being vulnerable during this time and gratitude toward those risking their own lives to help others. Nayana was supposed to be in NYC for art-related business when this pandemic struck that region. She is currently self quarantined in her home in Massachusetts which is a hotbed for the pandemic at the moment. She has produced over 25 works of art thus far during her quarantine and has been doing every piece over a live stream on Facebook and Instagram. Livestreaming the paintings as they are made has been a way to connect with other humans. People find her live stream painting videos soothing and a needed respite.
In Markus’ interview with Nayana, he was told that she came from analog black and white photography and that’s how she treats her paintings like the photography teacher told her – you have to have all tones from the whites white do the darker black in your image.
Claustrophobia
Artist: Julien Pironin
Country: France
Weblink: https://www.facebook.com/julienpironinphoto/
Description: Wet plate collodion photography made in late April. From a series about psychic distress called “Maussaderies”. It seems it fits perfectly with our actual quarantine, even if it wasn’t the first goal.
Markus’ Work
And here are the portraits of Markus’ that we discuss, along with some of the supporting photographs that Markus shared with us.
Gabriel Baharlia
13x18cm Collodion Wetplate – Shot with a Dallmeyer 2b Petzval Lens (220mm F3)
Gabriel Baharlia is a well-known portrait photographer in Israel who worked before with Helmut Newton
This Portrait was shown at the Menschenbilder Exhibition (Humans pictures exhibition) in Austria
Won theNations Award at the World Photographic Cup
And was on the title Page of the international Silvergrain Classics Magazine
Smiling Paul
13x18cm collodion wetplate shot with my Dallmeyer 2b (220mm F3)
This is a very unusual collodion wet plate portrait.
It is very tough to get honest/real emotions like that captured in combination with that shallow depth of field.
I was prepared and did it and there is a nice story behind it 🙂
This image was selected for the Menschenbilder Exhibition in Austria – Paul loved it
The Photographer
This is one of 5 30x40cm stereo Ultra Large Format Wetplates.
I worked for 6 months on the modification of my camera.
To find two historical Petzval lenses that focus closely on the same spot took some time.
Also setting up the camera for a shoot takes a very long time. If I remember right, it took me 6 to 7 hours for two plates.
There were several articles about my work and the images will be exhibited in a stereo congress in the Czech Republic 2021
Some Fun Videos
Show Notes
You can see Markus’ own work here: https://www.mhaustria.com
And the United Art Gallery is here: https://unitedart.gallery
Audio
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