Varnished or Tarnished ?
Having read many horror stories concerning varnishing with the traditional stuff (sandarac, ethanol & lavender oil) which made images disappear at times I felt very lucky never to have encountered this. I began to think maybe other people were just being sloppy with their varnish. Up until yesterday.
Quinn made a plate of me the first time I went to the photo fair in Bièvres and it was beautiful. They just didn’t have time to varnish the photo but I offered to do so myself back home. Once back home I never dared to varnish it thinking something might go wrong and at a certain point even forgetting about it. Until yesterday.
My boyfriend went to varnish the plates, he has more fireproof hands than I have, and he came back up showing me the plate of Quinn partially having vanished. What caused it? I don’t know. The plates before and after that one came out just fine. Maybe the plate was too old? Maybe the ethanol used in my varnish decided to fight with the ethanol used in the collodion mix by Quinn? Who knows. It happened and this is the way it looks…
At least now I know the plate will live for over a 100 years 
Exhibition Quinn Jacobson Paris 2010
I just have to write a bit about it so here we go.
Last Sunday we jumped in the car at 8 in the morning and drove to Paris. It was a smooth trip, completely hassle free and at around 11:30 we arrived to park our car in a garage located in the exact street where we were supposed to be; perfect. And then we walked to the gallery: Centre Iris – Pour la Photographie.
We hardly did enter or we saw Quinn and a greeting followed. He was busy with his workshop and invited us to come up after we went and seen his exhibit. So, we went down the stairs in a sort of wine cellar (France, you gotta love it!) and there hung LOTS of images, really magnificent. It was fantastic seeing his plates for real. They looked great and the presentation was really beautiful; off-white passepartout leaving a bit of space around the plates, in a frame with a black border. Very sober leaving the images to do the talking which they did very well.
Photos of all fragile people, shot using a fragile process but taking it further than just a pretty process and taking it further to the Jews in the Second World War, the scars the war left. Really impressive piece of work, I wish I had the money to buy some. Also a plate of a forest, which I still remember the best, I love(d) it to death.
During the exhibition view Jean came down to great us, really sweet! We talked for a bit, saw the exhibit to the end and joined everyone upstairs. Cool group that was following the workshop, they did a great job, LOTS of plates and a great space to use for this workshop. There were 2 lighting set ups people could use for making plates and even more cameras. It was also possible for them to shoot outside with daylight so a couple of them did. I actually modeled for one on a Triumph motorbike, that was pretty funny.
Around 2:30 the Leica group of Paris arrived for a small demonstration of the process by Quinn. That was really fun to watch as well and we had a great time. The model he made a photo of was great. Examples of it can be found following the upcoming link, it’s all in French but if you know English you should be able to figure out the most: http://www.summilux.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=32472&highlight=jacobson
Time flew by too fast and at 4 we had to head back to Maastricht as we had to work the next day and wanted a bit of the evening to eat and such and relax a bit from the day and cyanide & ether fumes 
To see some more about this from Quinn himself see here: http://www.studioq.com/blog/?p=1287
All in all, it was a great day, it was utterly great to meat Quinn, Jean and Summer again and I’m looking forward meeting all of you in London soon! Here are some pics to get your mouths watering and of course the address of the gallery, may you want to decide to view the exhibition which is certainly an advise to do so!
Sorry it has me in the photo but it was the best overview shot...
Another part of the gallery Centre Iris - Pour la Photographie
The workshop room with on the left the darkbox for developing etc and the studio part on the right
Centre Iris – Pour la Photographie
Pierre Gassin
238, rue Saint-Martin 75003 Paris
tél : +33 (0)1 48 87 06 09
fax : +33 (0)1 48 87 06 51
Go visit, it’s a wonderful place to be!
