Kunsttour 2012
Today was the last day and I’m home now. Tired, overheated but satisfied! This year’s Kunsttour for me took place in a building I was not familiar with, namely the Royal Mosa. This building is, even today, used for making tiles the Mosa is well known for. If Wikipedia is correct about this the company was founded in 1883 by Hubert Gerard Louis Regout. It had a few rather turbulent years but is in the end still in the hands of the Dutch, making it the only company in Belgium and the Netherlands that produces ceramics on an industrial scale.
Needless to say this building breaths a lot of history which will show on the photos that will follow. This year I will not have the extensive write-up like I made the last couple of years, I’m not even sure why. Perhaps I was and am too busy. This piece will mainly contain overviews to show you what it was like, sort of. The art displayed was as usually very diverse of nature, pretty things, awesome things and not so pretty things. The weather was awesome heating up the building like mad. Luckily there was a fantastic bar with drinks, good beer from Gulpener (!) and pleasant sandwiches from d’n Auw Stoof.
A small “Behind the scenes”
My stuff reflecting “the other side”
The work of my neighbour Monika Radhoff-Troll
Monika Radhoff-Troll
A part of the stand of Gerrie Goossens Ceramics
The work of Thomas Gobbele
The kites of Ton Oostveen and the chairs by Atelier 4D (which are really awesome!)
Creative lights by Much2C made of recycled materials
Of course the Kunsttour Radio was present as well with the all-familiar host TimoArt!
The play of words by Mine Stemkens dressed up the spaciousness
Ahhh the bar! Means…beer! And proper ones with that!
A really nice furniture collection by Bruls & Co under the name “RealSoftShop”
Wooden statues by Frits van Roon. One piece, a white owl I liked very much
The miniatures made by Niels Savelkouls. On another wall he hung close-ups of the scenes created in small.
And another overview where you can see my work of you look closely. Extremely closely that is 
Only the installation of the disklavier from Intro in Sito was really annoying (sorry to say). The goal was for people to touch a key and the piano would begin making these neurotic sounds on its own (not on its own of course, encouraged by a computer), people had to follow the keys and try to press the one the disklavier was playing. Doing that would take you up a level. People were really intrigued by this and that was fun to see but awful to hear for 3 entire days. Anyway…
Of course, lot’s a more stuff happened but I was pretty busy at my stand, talking to a lot of people. I had a great couple of days, I even had a gallery owner come up to me and showed great interest in my work. I hope something will blossom from that! I also sold one of my lith prints! Quite a bit of people coming back for a second look on my work, be it the same day or the next, which is really a huge compliment.
Last but not least a video made with the Canon S100 of Sound of Tiles which was really cool. This was a performance played on tiles showcased by the Mosa and executed by Marco Mlynek, Marc Alberto and Gerry Reynders.
Btw, the “nee” expressed in the beginning of the movie was because I saw my battery going dead. Long live my cameras without these frikkin’ batteries!
EXPO 40 jaar atelier Fotokunst
I was invited to join a group exhibition regarding the 40-year existence of the Department of Photography at SASK Hasselt, where I studied photography. Yesterday was the opening. Unfortunately due to this exhibition’s opening falling together with me preparing the exhibition in Stein (which will open tonight) I didn’t manage to get there in time for the opening speech. I also found very little time advertising this exhibition while it’s really worthwhile to pay it a visit.
This exhibition contains work of René Borzée, who is the founder of the photography department at SASK, gum prints, salt prints and Van Dykes from Karel van Gerven, under-water pinholes and liquid emulsions on a base of gold leaf by Patrick Poels, the series “I Was A Dog” by Anton Kusters and my work, lith prints and wet plate collodion images.
We were chosen to be part of this as we continued our search for images after school ended, each in a unique way. I feel really honored to be part of this and please go and see this wonderful exhibition.
academiegalerie | opening hours
mon-fri 10u-21u | sat 10u-16u | sun closed | stedelijke academie voor de schone kunsten | kunstlaan 12 Hasselt | t 011 23 98 40
www.kunstencampushasselt.be
EXHIBITION – Art Extraordinaire
This Saturday, 05 May 19:30, the exhibition ART EXTRAORDINAIRE will be opening at the Hoaf van Heden, Havenstraat 22, Stein.
This particular exhibition is an interesting coalition of multiple artists from different disciplines:
Helmut Jöcken – Paintings | Sculptures
Daniella Claessens – Paintings
Eefje Schenk – 3D | Graphic Design
Ed Schaap – Paintings | Airbrush
Vincent Pepels – Leather Art
Marcel Cohnen – Airbrush
Indra Moonen – Photography
The music during the opening will be brought to you LIVE by Syndicate, run by Bruno Bours and Lucas Kramer.
Everyone is welcome during the opening, and of course the rest of the days, so get your butt over to Stein and have some fun!
Wet Plate Collodion Demo Picto in Rixensart (BE)
Last Sunday we had our 3-monthly gathering of Picto Benelux and this time it was time for the wet plate collodion ambrotype process. Jeroen de Wijs and I prepared for a demo and Sunday morning Jeroen arrived at my place so we could drive together to Rixensart Belgium.
We decided to take my gear with us to do the demo and Jeroen prepared his “speech”, brought some lenses and examples of old original ambrotypes and ferrotypes. Bart wanted to drive so when Jeroen arrived we started packing everything into our car. Time to leave…NOT. The car refused to start (while it did half an hour ago..). So, loaded everything out of the car in to Jeroen’s car, not enough place for Bart so we left him behind, and finally took off to what turned out to be my worst demo ever 
All photos are the courtesy of Stefan de Pauw.
Oehhh lovely goodies!!!
Wet Plate Collodion Ambrotype looks to be a negative...
Ohh no, it's a positive!!
Once arrived I started setting up the darkroom tent with help of others, filled up the silver tank etc. etc. The theoretical part went well but took quite a bit of time since everything had to be translated to French (Belgium). Not that that was a problem but the light diminished quite rapidly and by the time we were ready for the practical part of the demo it turned out to be quite a challenge.
Jeroen showing the plate holder
The darkroom tent
The darkroom tent was inside with the temperature around 24 degrees (thanks Jacques, really ). I blew the dust of the plate, poured collodion on and placed it in the silver tank. So far so good. We anticipated to making the photo outside, it was pretty decent weather so that would work great. Once outside it was pretty damn cold, around 6 degrees. Positioned the attendees and got ready for the photo….guesstimated the exposure time around 15 seconds f4.
Went inside, got into the darkroom, pulled the plate out and developed…oops, that did not look very good…developed plate showing stains but no image… Oh well, let’s put it in the fixer bath. Black…and ow..I didn’t place the plate correctly on the holder so it fell into the tank.. Luckily Kal was handy enough to get it out for me (thanks), broke the plate (thought that was supposed to bring luck but I guess I should’ve shattered it into a million pieces) and I set up for a new one.
When we got outside the light was even less (of course) so we finally decided on an exposure time of 2 minutes. Not as many people gathered for the photo this time
Two minutes were pretty long in the cold so everybody was glad to be able to go inside again, looking forward to seeing the result of trembling for two whole minutes. I got back into the darkroom, developed the plate and…not much on the plate again besides some very obvious peeling. Darn…got outside, placed it in the fixer (good this time) and wow, some faces turned up from the dark. But for the most part it remained just dark.
The show must go on so I dried the plate and prepared to varnish. Heated the plate, heated the varnish, poured it on the plate and… gone it was. This only happened to me once with the plate Quinn made from me. I blamed it on the difference in alcohol being used back then but this was all my chemistry, working fine just 2 weeks ago. And now it decided to eat up my plate. Oh well, showed everyone just how cumbersome this process can be, including me
So..that was the end of that. I blame the peeling on the huge difference in temperature, about 18 degrees, the low UV light outside combined with the older collodion resulting in a lower-sensitivity which does not help in this case and resulted in too dark images. As far as the varnish is concerned..not sure. Will have to check it later to make sure it works again.
Last but not least: the self-made darkroom box by Rene Smet. Really pretty although it seems a bit tight for as a working space so have to keep the plates small I suppose but pretty nonetheless!
Enjoy my post about this failed demo and see you next time
Demo & Lecture Margraten
I’ve been asked by the photo club in Margraten to hold a lecture and a demo of the Wet Plate Collodion process.
- When: November 20th 2011
- Time: 14:00 hr
- Duration: 2-3 hours
- Location: Jongerencentrum Camion, Hoenderstraat 2b, Margraten
- There’s a large parking lot at the scene
Exhibition “Evanescence” gemeentehuis Beek (NL)
I’d like to invite you all to the opening of my upcoming exhibition “Evanescence” showing my wet plate work, some lith prints and some more.
Opening: September 30th starting at 20:00 hr
Opening Hours: Mon – Fri 09:00 – 12:30, Wed 14:00 – 19:00 Sat 2 Oct 14:00
Location: Gemeentehuis Beek, Raadhuisstraat 9, Beek (Limburg – NL)
Opening Speech: Carlo Valkenborgh
Music: Imro Moonen
Hope to see you there!
Collodion Image Stolen!!
Currently my collodion plates are to be seen at Lumière Cinema in Maastricht until July the 31st. Minus 1 that is. Last Tuesday I went to hang everything and the following Sunday one plate was missing. So…if you run into this image on somebodies wall, feel free to take it back (and give it back to me of course). I never had this happen to me before, it’s a strange form of a compliment…but still it sucks…it was the original 
KunstTour 2011 – Impressions
So , here they are at last! In short; it was a fantastic weekend. In long; please read on
Friday we set everything up. I was able to use pretty much all the space I wanted which was great. No room for hanging the work which was great too; saved a lot of work and hassle. We laid everything out on tables and saved one table in the middle to display the camera, a book with guiding information, prices and a guest book. At first we covered the tables with a green cloth which later that day got removed by Franz Rothenburg, one of the organizers, as you can see on first photos. Luckily he decided to remove them and spread the layout a little although I was a bit afraid when he mentioned having done so the night before opening.
The way things were with the green cloth
Close up of the presentation. This image actually sold that weekend!
The way things became - Photo: courtesy of Moonesque
The boat was situated at the wharf of the Landbouwbelang which, unfortunately, wasn’t clear enough for everybody as some ended up missing the boat. Great location though, not many people know this place but it’s a beautiful spot in Maastricht. Calm but raw, showing the industrial part of Maastricht in its “gone-by” glory.
The weather proved to be an excellent companion this weekend. The sky remained blue and the sun hot and burning most of the time. Also good companions were on the boat as in the other artists. Katrien Haemers showed her paintings which were quite fascinating! The work of Astrid Verkoijen also appealed to me. Her colorful work used in her furniture looked really great. Jimmy Dee played guitar on board and sang as well. He also performed on a didgeridoo which was cool!
He also gathered quite the bit of attention.
Another musical artist who performed on Sunday with Coen van Dam was Nico Zwackhalen with his bluesy voice. I met Coen before while there were still those famous jazz-monday-evenings at the Tramhalte in Maastricht. He rocked the piano there and I loved his playing from the start. Great to have met him on the boat listening to his music again. Downstairs at the boat “Viola di Gamba” gave a performance too.
Nico Zwackhalen - Photo: courtesy of Moonesque
Coen swinging the hell out of his piano, the rest enjoying the hell out of it
Coretta Dekker treated us with a comical performance which was really funny. Unfortunately she found it to be not good enough so she canceled her performance for Sunday. Too bad; would have loved to see it again
Coretta as 'Angelle"
Let’s not forget the wonderful poet of the house “Krokus” with his sharp words. A true addition to the boat with a remarkable feel for expression.
Photo: courtesy of Moonesque
Youri Penders showed us the wonderful process of the printing press late 1800′s. Really cool as my camera is from somewhere around that very same time! He explained the process with quite the bit of passion and engagement which made it all the more fun.
Youri and his printing press
And me...enjoying the sun and stuff
Of course, let us not forget about the people who made this all worthwhile: the guests!
Photo: courtesy of Moonesque
The crowd out on the deck - Photo: courtesy of Moonesque
Some unexpected performers - Photo: courtesy of Moonesque
Also, let us thank the weather for being so incredibly kind!!
Of course, a special thanks goes to the Basta family, Suzanne Stohr and Resi Claessens, the owner of this boat (which is available for rent).
As you can see a totally different KunstTour than last year and that made it all the more fun! Hope to see you (again) next year.
Indra
Bastaboot vaart uit tijdens de KunstTour
BASTABOOT VAART UIT TIJDENS KUNSTTOUR 2011
Het culturele anker BASTA Maastricht beziet alles van de zonnige kant.
Het blikveld wordt tijdens de Kunsttour 2011 wederom verlegd naar de
Maas. We zien graag het culturele licht schijnen in alleman water.
Vandaar dat we op Zaterdag 28 en Zondag 29 Mei om 12.00 en 15.00 uur
gaan cruisen en de opvarenden een verrassend programma bieden tussen
de veilige havens ‘Het Landbouwbelang en AINSI’.
Omdat we ons nooit laten insnoeren en voorschrijven waar we aan moeten
voldoen, kiezen we voor een eigenzinnig programma dat nog lang van zich
zal doen laten spreken, ook als de kruitdampen reeds lang zijn opgetrokken.
En zoals de traditie voorschrijft is onze huisdichter Krokus de rode draad in
het programma. Ook de Duitse klankarchitect ‘Der Nitszche‘ zal de Maas
vervoeren met zijn magisch gitaarspel.
Verder zijn er exposities van kunstenaars, muziek en theater die het programma
compleet maken.
Astrid Verkoijen, met Vormgeving
Coen van Dam, met piano
Coretta Dekker, met theater
GambaConsort Maastricht: Anneke Pasman – diskantgamba, Hildegard Moonen – altgamba, Bert Pasman – basgamba
Indra Moonen, fototentoonstelling (foto’s zijn gemaakt met een techniek van ±160 jaar geleden)
Jimmy Dee, met zang, gitaar en veel meer
Katrien Haemers, met haar schilderijen
Nico Zwackhalen, met zang
Ronald van Laar, met beelden
Youri Penders, met boekdruk kunst
Kortom, laat u verrassen en overrompelen. En ook niet onbelangrijk te vermelden:
De toegang is gratis. Er kunnen weliswaar 100 mensen mee op de boot maar
vanwege de enorme belangstelling is het aan te raden tijdig te reserveren.
Opstapplaats: Biesenwal/Wilhelminakade 28 en 29 Mei om 12.00 en 15.00 uur.
p.s. De boot heet “the Dream”
Reserveren bij:
Suzanne Stohr
suzannestohr@suzannestohr.nl
+31 6 290 55 232
KunstTour 2011 – May 27 – 29
Ladies and gentlemen…it’s almost time for the KunstTour again! This year it will be held from the 27th til the 29th of May all throughout Maastricht. For more information visit their website, join their Facebook or follow them on Twitter
The site says I’ll be located at the Frankenstraat 148 but that has changed. Me and my work will be on board of the Bastaboot where at the same time the interview with me for Basta will be presented. So…join us there. I think it’s gonna be fun! The boat is situated behind Landbouwbelang. Visit their website for more on that.
Till then!
“De Zeven” 13-05-11
Last Friday we had the opening of our exhibition project “De Zeven” at XIOS in Hasselt. I actually expected more people to have joined and worked on this theme so I was a bit disappointed to see only 10 people having participated. BUT, it was really great to see other people’s works regarding this theme and meeting some of my “old” class mates. The series jumped out the most for me were made by Dries Berghmans and especially Karen Wijckmans. Special thanks to Carlo for hosting all of this! Kudos for the theme!
If I'm not mistaken; on the left the work of Marc Leest & the solo photo on the right is from Rudi Cools
Wine, wine (water) and frozen orange juice
Series by Karen Wijckmans - Loved it!
Behind the people my work
The series by Dries Berghmans
I forgot who made these...sorry...all unfamiliar names...
That was the wrap-up of this exhibition. I would have loved to see more from different people…maybe next time!
-Indra
Exhibition Project “Seven” / Tentoonstellingsproject “De Zeven”
My former teacher from the art academy asked (former) students to work on the theme “The seven deadly sins”. We did and we’re finally ready to exhibit the works. My series “Devolution” will be first shown at this exhibition.
The opening is planned on May the 13th starting at 19:00 hr. The show runs until the 6th of June. Feel welcome to drop by anytime!
Address:
XIOS Hogeschool
Vilderstraat 5
3500 Hasselt (BE)
Wet Plate Collodion Demo @ SASK St. Niklaas (BE) 10-04-11
Some time ago I was invited by Fred Bosschaert & Lieven Nollet to give a wet plate collodion demo at SASK St. Niklaas. Yesterday came that day. I got up at 6:30 to leave for St. Niklaas at around 07:15. Unfortunately I forgot some stuff and had to drive back home to pick them up. Add to that the construction works at the E313 leading to me arriving a bit later than I had hoped for. When I got up to the classroom where I was giving the demo I saw everyone was already seated and waiting for me to start. And as chaotic as I can be I started. Luckily Bart came along for the demo and we worked together flawlessly as he took up the preparing of everything in the darkroom while I could find my way in talking and laying everything out on the table.
One attendee looking at the Darlot lens
It was a fantastic demo with lots of engaged listeners. It’s so fantastic seeing the surprise and wonderment on peoples faces when showing them the camera with the ground glass, explaining the age of the lenses, its apertures, black glass vs. clear glass and of course the process where especially the fixing part jumps out and makes for wild reactions. It was such a great pleasure showing them and spreading the knowledge of gone-by days. One person was so kind to send my photos of that day which I could place on my blog. So, all images (so far) are the courtesy of Corien de Witte.
I brought some images for them to see and feel
I also brought a quickly produced image on clear glass (negative) so they could see what would happen with (right side) and without black backing (left side)
Prepping the photo of Lieven Nollet, the photography teacher at SASK St. Niklaas
The darkroom part; they have this marvelous space with an open wet table in the middle which provides for an optimal working space to show people the process
Under the hood, final focusing before the actual photo
Right before I placed the back with the plate on the camera
Lieven Nollet immortalized
Bart was kind enough to varnish the plates made (my hands cant stand the heat very well)
Bart varnishing the plate
Unfortunately I don’t have any images of the photos made, I did two, but hope that someone will be willing to give me those so I can put them here as well (hint hint)
Edit: I received a scan from the first plate I made that day from Lieven. Thank you Fred! Bit of weird the collodion pealed off as it was a tintype = clean plate to start with. Next plate was much cleaner. Maybe I was less nervous then
Edit: I also received a photo where the second plate is on also from Corien de Wiite (thank you again!)
For some reason yet unknown to me the photo decides to upload itself in magenta…I’ll have look at it later, for now I find it kind of funky (though not representing the original).
Anyway, I would love to this again as everyone seemed to have had a wonderful time, including me!
Opening Exhibition Vleugels & Teugels
13-03-11
I can be very short about this; we had a great time! Quite a lot of people came to visit and had some interesting talks. Meeting the other participating artists I didn’t know (Bert Janssen I already knew), but Mimi Limpens and Chantal Veugen, made it even more interesting. Bart made a couple of photographs which I’ll post and that should wrap it up I guess.
My lith prints on the wall
Work by © Chantal Veugen
A few of the works by © Bert Janssen
An overview of Vleugels & Teugels
A lot of thanks go to Marij Vullinghs and René Huigen for hosting the event and doing so wonderfully! The exhibition can be seen until April the 2nd. Opening hours as mentioned below.
Vleugels & Teugels
Rechtstraat 90
6221 EL Maastricht
Opening hours:
Tue till Fri 10u30 – 18u00 [Thu till 20u00]
Sat 10u30 – 17u30
Sun shopping days 12u00 – 17u00
Exhibition Vleugels & Teugels: 13th of March
Who: Indra Moonen
What: Photography
Specific: Lith prints on Fiber paper
Opening: March 13th
Time: 15:00 – 17:00 PM
Until: April 2nd
There will also be works from Mimi Limpens, Bert Janssen en Chantal Veugen.
Matting & Framing
Recently I bought a mat cutter so I can do the framing myself. The system is really simple, even for someone who never really tried it and is rather clumsy. I bought large sheets of matting paper: 100 x 150 m. which I cut up to pieces of 50 x 50 cm. The best looking ones I took, measured the dimensions of the photograph, added 1 cm to each side as I wanted a tiny white border visible around the photograph and drew the dimensions on the back of the mat.
Then I took the ruler, aligned it with the lines I made on the mat, attached the cutter, lined that one up with the lines I drew and started cutting. It’s really very simple. I emphasized the lines on the cutter and mat so that I hope you can see the way it works. It cuts about 1 mm smaller on each side compared to the line you drew so keep that in mind while doing it and it’s gonna end up perfect!
Once you finished the four sides the inside will fall out and you can continue the mounting.
The way I mount is that I have another mat ready, 50×50 without a hole, and use it to attach the photo to. I use small double adhesive tape by Henzo and only attach it at the top of the paper. I printed the photo on 30×40 paper and the image itself is only 26×26 so I have a good white border to work with. I only place the tape where the white border is, not where the actual image is. That way you will never damage your photo, whether it’s due degradation of the glue in time or when you want to take it out of the mat one day. The two mats are taped together using acid-free tape and you flip the previously cut mat over the one where you attached the photo to and voilá; frame it and look at it full of joy
And on to the next one!
Preparing Frames for Exhibiton etc.
Getting your work framed, the issue of a lifetime. Balancing between looks and price is pretty challenging I’ve had some of my works framed by a professional frame maker but to frame lots of work it’s just too expensive. It’s not that the frame maker is too expensive, I just can’t afford it. One or two is not a problem but when talking about 10 the price tag suddenly gets a lot more revolting.
So I decided to buy some decent frames from a local artist shop only they came blank. The black version was twice the price so the choice was very simple; buy blank and paint myself.
The first blank victim awaiting its dark destiny
First frame converted to the dark side
No way back, job done!
All I have to do is wait for the passe-partouts to arrive, cut them and frame the work. By now it has all been printed and toned. Selenium in a large tray really really smells BAD! Even with the ventilation on it smelled downright awful at times. Dilution was 1+4 and left them in for about 3 minutes until they were fully colored. I didn’t like the split-toning with these images. I’ll scan a toned and untoned image somewhere this weekend to show the difference in color and contrast.
When I put the photo in the tray with toner they first turn very dark. It almost seems as if the darker parts in the image go black without detail and then, after about a minute or so, you see the image clearing. Whites bleach out a little (keep that in mind when printing!) and the dark parts come back to life with all the detail. And after about 1 minute the color really starts to kick in. It takes a bit but in the end it happens pretty fast. Snatching them in time from the toning bath is pretty vital if you don’t want that full coloration to kick in. With these papers you have to be pretty quick for split toning (my Ilford MGW.1K is much slower and less sensitive with this). Keep the dilution very low and the time very short. With the larger paper it did seem to give you more time though, with the smaller ones it seemed like I hardly had any time to snatch them in time for a split tone to remain.
Anyway, that was about it for today I guess…off to some well-deserved couch surfing
-Indra
Galerie Zebra – Willebroek (BE)
Today I visited Galerie Zebra after having been invited by Fred Bosschaert. This particular gallery is mainly focused on silver gelatin prints, a.k.a. prints produced in the darkroom starting from a genuine in-camera-made negative. Of course alternative processes are being welcomed there as well hence the why-I-ended-up-there too
Galerie Zebra - the Outside
A while back I talked about setting up a public darkroom / studio / space where people could learn the rolling of a darkroom / a place where people could experiment with alternative photographic processes / a place where workshops can be given and exhibitions can be held etc. I have putted that plan on the back burner as it takes quite a bit of time & fundings etc. to manage a project like this. Seeing I haven’t particularly raised the last mentioned it would be a potential financial disaster if I would dive into that now. But Fred on the other hand has the time and the means to do so and he did! He’s currently creating this space and it will open 25th of March this year! The kick-off will be an exhibition and portrait session by Jerome de Perlinghi, a rather well-known Belgium photographer. For more information click here.
Galerie Zebra - a view into the exhibition space-to-be with the daylight studio at the back and the entrance of the private darkroom on the right
This particular building will have an exhibition space, a “public” darkroom where workshops are given, a daylight studio (!!!). a floor higher there’s a room where matting and framing can be done and at the top floor a small studio where intimate portraits can be made. With intimate I mean a small secluded space where you can work 1-on-1 with a model to create something personal.
Galerie Zebra - in the middle of the exhibition space-in-the-making
This whole building is being created in the name of Photography. It’s all Photography there. Classic Photography even which is the most important part of all! Every photographer should, at least once in their short and miserable lives, experience the intimacy and sensual nature of working your images in a darkroom. That’s where the chemistry happens after all
Galerie Zebra - from the exhibition space looking towards the entrance
There are two darkrooms, one is somewhat for private use I believe and the second one is the public space. A nice large room which is big enough to host a couple of enlargers and make bigger prints. It’s all still in the making so keep that in mind when viewing my photos.
Galerie Zebra - Private darkroom wet side
Galerie Zebra - Private darkroom dry side
I have been asked to give a workshop in Collodion photography and we’re currently working out the details of it; date, duration etc. etc. The beauty of this place is that it has a daylight studio. With collodion all you need is UV light so that’s gonna work wonders! It is the absolute PERFECT spot to set up a portrait. And with 2 darkrooms in close range it’s going to be an even more perfect location hosting a workshop like this. Needless to say, I am looking forward tremendously!
Galerie Zebra - Daylight studio (!!)
Galerie Zebra - Daylight studio (!!)
On the right of this studio is the second darkroom and on the left you’re going back towards the exhibition space. It’s a nifty place and a marvelous location for these type of events.
Galerie Zebra - The public darkroom
Galerie Zebra - The public darkroom
Well, that was a short survey of the building-in-development. More will follow soon I’m sure. I’ll also post some photos from when it’s done because it’s going to be great! It’s all well thought-through over time and it’s being made with passion. How good can it get!
Galerie Zebra - From daylight studio back to the exhibition space
That wraps it up for now I guess. I’ll be back sooner than later! Oh, and I’ve also been asked to give a demonstration of wet plate photography at SASK St. Niklaas in Belgium. Awesome too so…..2011; bring it on!!
Have a good weekend all of you (what’s left of it anyway).
-Indra
Galerie Zebra
Vooruitgangstraat 2
2830 Willebroek
Belgium
fred [dot] bosschaert [at] skynet [dot] be
Tel.: +32 475 900 011
Opening hours: by appointment, invitation or announcement only.
Picto Meet 2: (Brom) Oil Printing
Finally today was our second meeting at Picto Benelux in Rixensart (BE). The topic treated was (brom) oil printing. It started with a short theoretical introduction and was followed by multiple demonstrations by different people. Extremely interesting as it was my first intro in oil-printing. It was quite fascinating and definitely made my list of things I want to know more about.
The demonstration I followed the most was by Andre Devlaeminck and the following photos are of his work(ing). I’ll add a short description of the process (stolen from Wiki – too lazy to make up my own words now ) including differences between bromoil and oil printing.
“To explain the bromoil process, it is helpful to look at the oil print first. The prints are made on paper that has been coated with a thick gelatin layer and has been sensitized with dichromate salts. Exposure using a negative for contact-print leads to hardening of the dichromated gelatin, in direct relation of the amount of light received. After exposure, the print gets soaked in water. The non-hardened parts absorb more water than the hardened parts, so after sponge-drying the print, while still moist, one can apply a lithographic ink to the oil-base. The non-mixing character of oil and water results in a coloring of the exposed parts of the print, creating a positive image. The ink application requires considerable skill, and as a result no two prints are alike.
Bromoil prints are a direct variety of this process: One starts with a normally developed print on a silver bromide paper which is then chemically bleached and hardened. The gelatin which originally had the darkest tones, is hardened the most, the highlights remain absorbent to water. This print can then be inked like the oil print.”
The advantage of bromoil is that you can enlarge a negative using your regular enlarger as the paper has a normal sensitivity to light. The oil process requires you to contact-print a negative because you can’t use your enlarger for exposing your paper. It needs UV light to work, meaning you’ll have to create a negative the size you want your final product to be in. Unfortunately there are (hardly) any papers available (screw you digital world!) which you can properly use for the bromoil process. Thus reverting back to oil printing without the “brom” will be inevitable in the end.
I started a bit late with taking photographs as I was too busy watching so the images will start explaining things a bit further down the road. The papers have been prepped already, exposed, developed, bleached, rinsed and the inking has already started.
After being soaked the paper gets placed on your working space and attached.
With normal household paper you can get rid of the excess water; you only want the swollen gelatine to be wet to repel the ink.
Again removing the excess water of your print
The inking starts when there is hardly anything visible on your paper due to the bleaching. You can however see the relief and then you kind of know the inking will have its effect. The parts where the gelatin has hardened due to exposure the ink will stay (dark parts) and the parts where the gelatin is soft it absorbs the water which on its turn will repel the ink (lighter parts), hereby forming the image.
Here you can see the stipulating, bringing the ink to the paper and slowly spreading it
The ink can be applied by a small roller and / or different brushes., the first being the least precise of the two. You can also start applying the ink with the roller and working the image with brushes. In my understanding you first make sure you create an even layer of ink on the paper, then making sure it gets into the emulsion and than you start working the image by creating the lighter parts and the darker ones. The more ink the darker and by tapping on the paper with a clean brush you can remove ink in order to create lighter parts.
Here you can see some of the materials used, brushes etc.
When you think you stippled enough (and or the print is drying up which means the inking will no longer have effect) you have to soak the print again. This will wash of the excess ink on the soft gelatin parts cleaning up the light parts giving you a better understanding of the light parts in the image and where you would want to improve it further. After a minute or so get the print out and place it back on your working space, repeating the household paper session of course to get off the excess water. This has to be done in such careful manner as not to smear the ink all over the image and ruining it.
Soaking the inked print to determine the next step and or wetting the paper again
..And continueing the stippling and whatnot..
...and some more...
And the final image (the photo does it no justice at all!)
Anyway, I had a wonderful Sunday afternoon and I hope my post was not too messy, unclear and full of flaws. If so, let me know, I’ll adjust it asap as it’s important the information given is as accurate as possible. Again looking forward to the next Picto Benelux Meet!!
Indra
Wet Plate Demo Doesburg 22-08-10
Yes, it has been a while but I’m back again Life has been a bit too busy, still is I guess, so it’s time for some posting again!
The Fotografica Fair in Doesburg has been quite a while back but still feel like posting the images from that day. It was much fun. The plan was to recreate a sort of Bièvres – Event but Dutch people are a lot more hesitant to pose for a photo, even though they wouldn’t have to pay if they didn’t want the photo. French people are also more willing to pay for something cool and handcrafted than the Dutch. Anyway, we did manage to make some portraits that day, had lots of fun with the interestees and talked a lot about the process. When the day came to an end we sat down in a restaurant, had some beer and had dinner. The perfect end of a wonderful day!
Geert-Jan "shooting" his victims. Photo: courtesy of Guido Vandebroek vandebroek-beuls@telenet.be
Geert-Jan preparing development of image. Photo: courtesy of Guido Vandebroek vandebroek-beuls@telenet.be
Geert-Jan developing the plate. Photo: courtesy of Guido Vandebroek vandebroek-beuls@telenet.be
Some testplates. Photo: courtesy of Guido Vandebroek vandebroek-beuls@telenet.be
Plate ready for dipping into the fixer. Photo: courtesy of Guido Vandebroek vandebroek-beuls@telenet.be
The fixed image. Photo: courtesy of Guido Vandebroek vandebroek-beuls@telenet.be
The couple looking at their image. Photo: courtesy of Guido Vandebroek vandebroek-beuls@telenet.be
Our sign board. Photo: courtesy of Guido Vandebroek vandebroek-beuls@telenet.be
Inside the darkbox. Photo: courtesy of Guido Vandebroek vandebroek-beuls@telenet.be
My cheesy Polaroid photo made with the Impossible Project's PX600 film
Paula on the Impossible Project's PX600 film.
"Dinner" photographed a la super-cheesy on the Impossible Project's PX600 film
Extreme awesome pinhole photographs with a Diana Camera made by Vernon Trent: www.vernontrent.com
Extreme awesome pinhole photographs with a Diana Camera made by Vernon Trent: www.vernontrent.com
Extreme awesome pinhole photographs with a Diana Camera made by Vernon Trent: www.vernontrent.com
Extreme awesome pinhole photographs with a Diana Camera made by Vernon Trent: www.vernontrent.com
All in all, I hope you can see what a great day this has been! We had a chat with the caretakers and hosts of this event and they expressed their thoughts in having us set this up at the next Fotografica event in Houten. They had to arrange things with the fire brigade as we’re working with some flammable materials but they would get back to us…yet to be continued…
Indra
NRW-Forum Düsseldorf: Robert Mapplethorpe
Last Sunday we went to see the exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe in the NRW-Forum in Düsseldorf. I have to admit that prior to this I never really looked into his work and when I googled some images on the net I found that this could be very interesting. It surely was. When I saw all the nudes and close-ups of penises on the net I thought it to be very awkward. Now having seen them in person (not the penises, just the photos) I feel quite baffled.
© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. If I violated any rules by using this photo I apologize in advance and will delete all of it when contacted. I do not intend to shock anyone with its content; it's merely used to support my piece.
Knowing that he actually studied drawing, painting and sculpture before picking up photography is very interesting looking at this body of work. The human (parts of) bodies presented by him are so carefully modeled and lit that they look as if he made them with his own hands, they look sculptured. The way muscles, lines and shapes are emphasized and magnified remind me of the Greek sculpturing where in fact the same was done. This can also be found in the expressions on their faces when photographed; sober and often even apathetic.
© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. If I violated any rules by using this photo I apologize in advance and will delete all of it when contacted. I do not intend to shock anyone with its content; it's merely used to support my piece.
The prints are so extremely well executed that in combination with the above even photos of penises, which might come across as erotic, are in no way close to that. They become figures of their own, aesthetic and silent, no longer in the context they are normally surrounded with. I came to like them very much for that reason.
© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. If I violated any rules by using this photo I apologize in advance and will delete all of it when contacted. I do not intend to shock anyone with its content; it's merely used to support my piece.
One of the other reasons I like his work; finally nude males instead of (hardly always) erotically presented nude women. Artistic Nude is the most overrated category these days and I advise people sprinkling this term on a regular base to look at this man’s work and think again before using it. But that’s a side note, one which I’ll probably get back to in the future. The images are true stills, they are quiet, delicate and of such perfect technique it’s almost daunting. They are also not erotic, even though some of them depict acts of sexual nature. It’s as if they’ve been keeping a pose for hours until it got perfected before taking the photo. Most photos look like an instant, these images look like indefinite moments in time. I am fascinated.
© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. If I violated any rules by using this photo I apologize in advance and will delete all of it when contacted. I do not intend to shock anyone with its content; it's merely used to support my piece.
If you get the chance to visit the show, I advise you to do so. It’s opened until the 15th of August. I hope you enjoyed my writing about it.
-Indra
© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. If I violated any rules by using this photo I apologize in advance and will delete all of it when contacted. I do not intend to shock anyone with its content; it's merely used to support my piece. Self Portrait of Robert Mapplethorpe.
http://www.mapplethorpe.org
Triennial Istanbul 2010
It has started! Together with 4 other people we are representing the Academy of Fine Arts Hasselt (SASK) during the Triennial in Istanbul which is being held from the 7th til the 30th of June. I couldn’t make it to see the exhibit unfortunately but you simply can’t have it all Luckily I received some photos from Angelina, also participating. The other participants are: Birgit Stulens, Jean-Pierre Pijls en Rudy Cools. Angelina was so kind to bring a book from Istanbul with all the works gathered and shown there.
Jean-Pierre on the right, me on the left
Birgit on the left
Jean-Pierre on the right, me on the left
ISBN: 978-975-400-331-4
FLTR first page then 2nd: Me, Rudy, Angelina, Jean-Pierre, Birgit
Anyway, looking great!!
-Ciao-
Vleugels & Teugels Maastricht
Around April I got contacted by Marij Vullinghs via an email asking me if I was interested in something, some form of collaboration, which would be explained some time later on. This very much amused me and when I got a second response giving some more clarity I knew this was gonna be great. She said she contacted 2 other photographers in Maastricht, Bert Janssen & Branco Rooijakkers, and wanted to meet so she could explain in words what their plans and intentions were. And so we did.
The 21st of April we met at her house with her partner René Huigen. She runs a consulting group in Maastricht where the goal in rough lines is to act as a catalyst or better: midwife towards “sustainable development” of people and organisations realising durable change. Bringing potential, experience and wisdom of people to work in working together. Starting up Vleugels & Teugels at the Rechtstraat 90 in Maastricht is meant to create an actual physical space where people can meet, see, feel, share green, sustainable, earth loving things.
The reason we came into play was that on the basis of their story we were asked to make photos and present them at the opening of that physical space in the Rechtstraat. To all of us that sounded like a great idea and off we went with our ideas to make them into something tangible.
When thinking about their concept (sorry for that word, Marij ) the thing that kept popping into my mind was trees. It’s green but with a foundation, it stands for growth and the natural sequence of events, it lives and gives life. I think you catch my drift. So trees it came to be.
I also thought of a poem inspired by music and words of Max Richter which I presented alongside my photos:
Here’s the promo film of Vleugels & Teugels made by Ted Daamen (it’s only in Dutch..sorry :
Vleugels & Teugels at the Rechtstraat is a place where items are sold that are made of recycled materials, books about recycling or about anything sustainable for that matter, it’s a place where you can have a cup of coffee, talk about whatever feels connected with their concept, find inspiring things, see and buy art and lot’s more. It’s very inspiring and I hope they will pull this of in a world in need of these initiatives.
Read their interview with the Limburger here.
And feel free to visit this place; it’s quite wonderful. Here’s the address:
Vleugels & Teugels
Rechtstraat 90
6221 EL Maastricht
P.s. there will be a “finissage” for the photographic works showed there. To be announced shortly.
Foire à la Photo Bièvres 2010
This was it… Bièvres has come to an end. It was a wonderful weekend and beyond, absolutely worth everything! Met some great people, some familiar ones and some new ones and just had a wonderful “may-your-hands-always-be-black” couple of days.
Day 1:
We left for Bièvres at 9:30 in the morning. We arrived at around quarter past 2 so the journey went very well. We stayed at Novotel Saclay which was pretty good, unfortunately the swimming pool was closed due to unknown-to-me reasons and you had to pay 4 euros an hour for WIFI. The hotel last year was twice as cheap and had free WIFI, it just didn’t have any food on site and getting that at a later time turned out to be quite a hassle back then hence the Novotel choice. Anyway, we ate a sandwich and left for the city Bièvres to take a look and meet up with Jeroen. We actually sat on the terrace all day until it was time to eat and we got up to go to a restaurant nearby
The two of us
Pretty lazy that was but very nice. The weather was extremely good, around 30 degrees celcius. The terrace is located at the famous round-about in Bièvres and we watched cars coming and going all day long; there were a LOT of cars for such a small place. People were also building up the fair so lots of activity. The restaurant we went to had us take seats on their terrace and the view from there was truly stunning..
View from the restaurant; France at its best!
Another point of view
During our dinner we met Peter Loy and his father who joined the restaurant and we met last year. I bought a leather Rolleiflex strap from him for my TLR. After dinner we went to the hotel, watched a movie on the lappie and prepared a bit for Saturday, the first official day of the fair.
Day 2:
We left for Bièvres at around 10 I believe. We met Alex on the terrace with Ben and another friend. So, good excuse for some coffee We saw Quinn walking of the fair with a massive lens so we knew he had gotten what he came for and finally we walked over to the booth of Quinn where we met Jean, Summer, John and his wife and Violet (their cutie baby girl), Garret and his wife and so on. We decided to meet later on the day again to talk a bit about Sunday and to eat some and left for the fair.
hmmmmBIG!
Lot's of photos for sale too
HmmmBIG too! It was there last year as well
Lots of stuff...
...And some more lots of stuff...
We came looking for a lens hood for my new Darlot which we found in the shape of a hard leather lens case. A bit of modification and it’ll work perfectly. I also looked for waterhouse stops but that’s nearly impossible to find so I’ll just have them made somewhere soon. And we also found a clamp to mount my recently acquired head brace from Geert-Jan on a tripod. Then we went for dinner…same restaurant as the evening before (not much choice in Bièvres really but it was fine).
Garret and his wife
Jean, Quinn and Summer
Jeroen with a bit of Summer
John, Rachel and the little Violet
After dinner we went to check on Quinn’s car in the heat to see how all was doing and he showed us his latest purchase which he intents to use for his next project, probably executed back in The States, working King Size! And for that you’ll need something competing in size of course…
Size DOES matter
After that we went back to the booth and the fair. Time flew by. We talked about at what time we would meet on Sunday to start building up the booths etc. and Jeroen, Geert-Jan and us arranged to meet for dinner later that night after having refreshed ourselves back at the hotel. That dinner was a stunning success. We decided on a restaurant some 12 kms away from where we were staying and glad we did so.
It’s worth mentioning separately, really. It’s situated in a small residential in the kind of middle of nowhere. Staff was really great and surprised four dutch people came to visit them as it’s so of the map. The interior was pretty “ancient” looking but that certainly added to the ambiance.
Not our photo but this is exactly were we sat
We chose from the Menu Tradition:
Petites Pièces de Canard (cou farci, magret seché, friton et grattons)
Saumon façon Sushi, rattes Tièdes, Mesclum*
Courgettes en Blanc-Manger et Confites, Tomates et Olives
***
Gigot de Canard mijoté Bolets et Girolles
Confit de Canard aux deux Pommes
Magret de Canard aux fruits Rouges
Cassoulet au Soissons Géants
Poisson suivant le Marché*
***
Chocolat Noir Weiss 63%, Feuilletage en Ganache
Ananas, Orange, Sorbet Citron, Biscuit Sablé
Sorbets, Turbinés au moment*
Pruneaux à l’Armagnac
Petites Pièces de Canard (cou farci, magret seché, friton et grattons)
The dishes with the little star behind was what I ate that evening. I like duck but didn’t feel like it, what I tried from Bart though was really good. Before the desert was served the waitress came to ask if we’d like some cheese in between. Good thing we said yes! Oh my, a big platter on wheels came along with some beautiful cheeses from which we could choose. The creme of Roquefort was even house made. Anyway, what a treat!! Then came the real desert which was fantastic as well. Afterwards some coffee; unfortunately all nights have to end and so did ours. We headed back “home” after having enjoyed a wonderful evening! If you happen to be around, go there; it’s worth a detour!
Day 3:
We got up at around 8, got ready and looked out the window…rain in massive amounts accompanied by thunder and lightning. Huhum…that looked scary. We left for Bièvres, got some breakfast and the rain miraculously stopped and the sky sort of cleared up a bit. The booth was already built up and we started helping Quinn with photographing. I “ran” back to the car at one time to pick up my photos for display and helped further at the boot. At around 3 Quinn ended his session and we got ready to take over. Vincent, Geert-Jan and I made the rest of the photos and Bart did all the varnishing.
The booth from the side
Some cool people I took photos of; a really great way to come in contact with new people and share the love for this process. Two of them were working for Photo, a large French magazine on photography who covered Quinn with his exhibition in Paris and had a stand a little further than ours. One man wanted his two young daughters photographed and he turned out to have a huge collection of collodion photography so knowing the process he wanted to have one of his beautiful girls. And I took a photo on request of the person who displayed his work across from our booth. His name is Christophe Hesters and makes wonderful street photography with his Leica MP mostly using Kodak Tri-X.
The booth, again from the side
I actually had planned to bring all my stuff. I took all the things I have for making plates including chemicals to Bièvres but already 2 more people besides Quinn brought their stuff. I thought it would be overkill if I would bring my things Sunday to the booth, would’ve had to stash them somewhere and so on. I worked with Geert-Jan’s wonderful dark box which was great. It really was a handy thing to be working in. I also used Vincent’s camera once which was a cute little Shen Hao camera:
Shen Hao 4x5"
Vincent made a quarter plate insert for it and it worked really great. Very small and pretty weird when used to 18 x 24 But slick camera, great focusing (as far as I could tell without my glasses…) and just very small, especially when folded.
Not sure what we were looking at but it had to be very special
Bart found the time somewhere to take my small Steinheil to the fair and find a flange for it. Quite special as matching ones are pretty rare. There’s supposed to be an original one on Ebay so have to check on that… Luckily the weather remained dry that day but the sun was constantly coming and going which made it utter hell determining exposure time. Most of the plates succeeded, some we had to redo, but that was a challenge on its very own.
The work of John Brewer on the right, then Dmitry Rubinshteyn, Me and Fabrice on the outer left
The person mentioned below, Matthias Olmeta, came to show his work and to look around. What fantastic work! Large plates using clear plexi-glass to shoot the images on, then varnish them and then paint it black over the varnish. You then look at the image through the plexi-glass plate which also keeps you from seeing it mirror-inverted like normally. He also worked on projects contacting negatives on paper, but then lots of them on the same large sheet, and then developing the large sheet as a whole. Really cool stuff!
Matthias Olmeta with his impressive plates
I also met Bruno Dubroqua, someone I already “knew” via Facebook, and without knowing until he recognized me, met for the first time in Bièvres.
The booth one last time
I still keep thinking I forgot to mention people and things that happened…will add them later I guess. So much happened that long weekend it’s impossible to recollect these memories at once. And seeing my memory is not thàt good…
At around seven in the evening we were done, cleaned up and went to the hotel, absolutely exhausted. We decided to eat some at the hotel, which was pretty okay, and rolled of to bed. I believe we fell asleep at around 10:30. Quite unique that early.
Day 4:
Well, that was it really. Packed our things and headed back home, still tired and actually still am now. Here are some photos from the “leaving of Paris Area”:
The Business District
Neat versus Trash
Ohh, how pwetty!
Stade de France, Saint-Denis
The Looking Back
~The End~
