Solid & Liquid

Description

Solid & Liquid is the title of this print. Aesthetic of landscape photography is fascinating to me. These kind of pictures can stand alone, on its own. But when put together with different photos, they change their meaning. In my first book A Father’s Tale, the main theme was fears and delights being a father. Landscape photos conveyed emotions that I’ve held towards my daughters and my role being a father. This image, Solid & Liquid has a potential to be in one of my future books.

Technically (almost) everything is handmade, from mixing chemistry for glass plate negatives to coating of paper, developing, processing, down to retouching the negative with graphic pencil. I do buy glass :-)  This image is a contact copy from a wet plate collodion negative, printed on a baryt paper as a carbon print transfer. These two processes are dating back in 1850’s and beside that they are the most archival processes, they are also the most beautiful way that photography print as a medium can be.

The image appears almost like 3D, because the image is made by the relief of the pigmented gelatine, meaning the blacks are made by a thick layer of pigmented gelatine and whites are made with thin layer of gelatine. I know many photographic processes and this is my favourite one.

Reference:
I, Borut Peterlin, have devoted all my life to photography and I have a BA degree in Fine Art Photography from Famu, Prague, PostGraduate Diploma at London College of Printing, I was working with Oliviero Toscani at Fabrica / United Colors of Benetton and I was photoeditor and photographer at Mladina weekly magazine for about ten years. In 2001 I’ve started Fotopub festival and I was an art director for eight years. Most of my knowledge in the 19th Century photography processes originates from workshops with Mark Osterman in George Eastman House, Rochester, USA and I also took color carbon printing workshop with Calvin Grier. I have great interest in education and although I have many seminars at colleges, I keep myself away from academic waters in favour of a freelancing career. I share my knowledge passionately either through seminars, workshops and also via my YouTube channel.