I always have been fascinated by photography.
But with the introduction of the digital camera it all became too easy, too predictable …to me.
So I forced myself to go back to the roots of real analog photography.
Not just by making the photograph itself, but by controlling the entire photographic process.

This brought me back to the middle of the 19th century, to the amazing Collodion wet plate process.
And every single day I feel challenged to refine and improve myself.


For my website please visit : www.alextimmermans.com

Alex Timmermans
Holland


"You don't take a picture, it's given to you"

donderdag 28 november 2013

Great Dallmeyer lens database is online

Some of you might known Sean Mackenna.
Years ago Sean copied the original books of the Dallmeyer factory.
Those books contained a lot of information on production dates of the dallmeyer lenses including the person who made it and who it was sold to.
Unfortunately Sean died at the 14yh of October 2012.
Sean was a really nice guy, always helpful to find the production dates of lenses.
 
His wife Jen told me that they were working on the idea to publish the whole Dallmeyer database online. It must have been a hell of a job because the amount of information is was huge.
The good news is that it is online now. So if you are looking for a year of build for your Dallmeyer lens, just visit this website:

http://www.thedallmeyerarchive.com/Records/Identification.html

 
By now I don't know yet who did this great job, but MANY MANY
thanks for all the hard work!!
 

zondag 24 november 2013

Great Magazine about wet plate photography

Recently I was offered a publication in Fine Art Photo, a German photo magazine.
During our e-mail contact the publisher, Rudolf Hillebrand, decided to publish a complete magazine all on wet plate!
 
So beside of some great portfolios from several outstanding International wet platers, this magazine also contains a huge amount of information about the whole process told by Vernon Trent, about the needed equipment, and about the ECW (European Collodion Weekend).
But also a nice article with "behind the scene" info of some of my plates.
The magazine is written in German and Partly also in English!
 
Portfolios of the following wet platers are in the magazine:
 
Craig Tuffin,
Ed Ross,
Jody Ake,
Dave Aharonian,
Andreas Reh,
Ana Tornel
Borut Peterlin
Vernon Trent
and mine.
 
It's only € 14,95 + € 6,= shipping costs.
Almost 150 pages completely filled with wet plate information and hardly any advertising!!!
A must have for every wet plater.
 
 
 





 

dinsdag 19 november 2013

My adventure in Paris during FOTOFEVER

The day after, back to earth................

Sunday evening we arrived home from a long and very inspiring weekend in Paris.
My work was exhibited at FOTOFEVER by The Unlimited Grain Gallery.
They sold several pictures of my work so it was a great success!!
First of all my thanks to the Gallery keepers Hilde Bodbijl and Frans Peter Verheyen who believed in my work from the beginning and offered me the opportunity to show my work during the fair.

Also to my good friend and "manager" Ferry van der Vliet for all the back stage support.
And let's not forget the buyers of my work who encouraged me to make some new work during 2014.

We have met some very friendly and inspiring people like Jack Montgomery, a fantastic photographer, Alexander Scholz who's publishing fantastic books of an amazing quality, Trevor E. R. Yerbury and Faye Yerbury and their lovely friends who we had a good chat with on photography and workshops (love their work!!!), Anna Alix Koffi, also a publisher who invited us for a lovely party on Saturday evening, our neighbours, the owners of Galerie Pennings who we had a good laugh with!, "the golden girls" Renée Jacobs and Wendy Hicks, J Schmidt, Ana Tornel, Frabice Pejout etc.

And of course the other artists represented by our gallery; Jacqueline Roberts and her lovely family, Mirjam Appelhof and Jeroen van Haren and Claudio Santambrogio.
Sorry if I forgot to mention somebody.... as I mentioned before. It's the day after...

Thank you all for your friendship and kind works.
I received loads of positive energy!!

See you all soon!

Alex
 
 

 










 

dinsdag 5 november 2013

Unique oppertunity for a wet plate portrait!!


Coming Thursday, November 7th, I will be present in the new pop-up Gallery of Kahmann gallery.
This gallery is located in the centre of Amsterdam, the Van Baerlestraat 39.
During that day (from 11:00 till 16:00) I will be making some commissioned wet plate portraits.
Are you interested in such a unique portrait made by me, just contact Roy Kahmann at:

info@kahmanngallery.com
Price depends on the preferred size of the actual plate.
Only 2 places left!! So don't wait to long.






 

vrijdag 18 oktober 2013

The gift....

 
Today I was invited for the opening of the new gallery of Hans and Jacqueline Persoon.
The problem was, what to give them as a present ....
The idea came up to make a wet plate of their 2 children, Rick and Judith.
So yesterday evening we made... this plate.
I can tell you, it was a huge, unexpected surprise for their parents!
Special thanks to Arjen Went and Manon Navarro for helping me with this idea.

26,5 x26,5 ambrotype
Dallmeyer 3a wide open
 
 

zondag 13 oktober 2013

Fixing the bellows of my 10x20" panorama camera

 
A few months ago I found a very nice antique large panorama camera.
Made a new ground glass for it and Mark Voce made me a matching plate holder.
The bellows was fine but unfortunately it was bend on the top.
The only way to solve that was to turn the bellows upside down.
So I took out the bellows and had to mount it again.
The front part was quite easy to do.
I just used contact glue, put the front and bellows together and
placed some books on top of it to gain some pressure.
But mounting the back part was a bit more difficult as I wasn't able to put some pressure on it.
A few weeks ago I saw a post on facebook where somebody was using clothespins.
I can't remember anymore who came up with the idea but it works just perfect.
As this camera is so big (10x20") I did cut some pieces of dibond and mounted them
using these clothespins. Just as simple as that.
 
So now I have a fully working camera with a prefect bellows again.




donderdag 10 oktober 2013

Fotofever Brussels

Last week I was present at the Fotofever art fair at Brussels.
About 40 international photo galleries represented their artists.
 
My work was represented by the Unlimited Grain Gallery
I have seen some stunning creative work and was very proud my work was part of that fair.
The fair was very successful for me and my gallery and we met many very interested people.
Fortunately my work was also represented by some online announcements like Drome magazine and Photographie.com.
 
Some pictures of the stand of Unlimited Grains representing work from Jacqueline Roberts, Reza Kathir, Mirjam Appelhof, Claudio santambrogio and me.
 
Hopefully we will also be present at the Fotofever Fair at Paris, so stay tuned!!!
























maandag 30 september 2013

The day after......

 
When I arrived at home yesterday evening I barely could walk anymore.
The four days at Unseen were exhausting but also in one word : FANTASTIC!!
The day after such great days feels horrible.
 
A few months ago Arjen Went and Manon Navarro, owners of the Tintype Studio at Amsterdam, invited me to join them during THE Dutch photographic event, Unseen.
4 long days making wet plates, explaining the wet plate process over and over, meeting great people from all over the world.
It felt like a marathon but was even better than a 2 weeks holiday!
And we were lucky with the weather. Every day the temperature was great and nothing but sun!
And working with Manon and Arjen was an honor. What a lovely couple!
 
Pictures were made by Arjen, my daughter Lisa and me


 




 
 
 






















maandag 23 september 2013

Unseen Photo Art Fair 2013

 
I am honoured that I was invited to work together with two of the most creative wet platers I know.
Manon Navarro and Arjen Went.
During the Unseen photo art fair edition 2013we will demonstrate
the beautiful collodion wet plate process and show our work.
Interested in having an original wet plate  portrait made by us? Just visit us during Unseen!
I am really looking forward to this event!


Unseen Photo Fair

Thursday         26 September 2013           12.00-20.00
Friday              27 September 2013           12.00-22.00
Saturday          28 September 2013           12.00-20.00
Sunday            29 September 2013           12.00-17.00
Westergasfabriek
Klönneplein 1
1014 DD Amsterdam
The Netherlands


For more info you can always check: http://www.unseenamsterdam.com/festival-sqaure-initiatives

 



zondag 8 september 2013

"Shaunah"

Here's another one from yesterdays shoot with Shaunah.

26x26cm aluminium ambrotype.
exposure time 8 seconds
Dallmeyer 3a a 5.6
 
 

Click HERE for a video of the fixing stage of this plate

 

zaterdag 7 september 2013

Ultimate pleasure.......

After some weeks of silence we finally had time to make the plate which was in my mind for months already. It's like making a puzzle. I start collecting the things I want to use and when all pieces are in the right position I am able to make it.
Just call it a "mind mood board".

Unfortunately there are always things which goes wrong during the very last minute.
I wanted the chandelier which I bought months ago working. 
But after plugging it in only two bulbs were working.... All the other 13 were broken.
So we hurried to a local shop, bought 16( one spare) new bulbs and we managed to got it working.
Second problem. The spot we located in the garden for the shoot was about 150 meters from the house.... no power at the location. We used 6 long cable reels to solve that "little" problem.
 
So later than I expected I was able to make my first plate. I can tell you that one was spot on.
Perfect exposure, clean plate, the pose was perfect, the light was superb.
But..... we were so enthusiastic that we forgot to remove the two buckets which
we have been using to fill the bath tub.
So  in the picture there were two nice white buckets next to the bath.    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!

The new plate came out just great. .
Unfortunately after a few hours it started raining.
Why does this always happens during a shoot?
It hasn't been raining for more than 2 weeks!!
But again, despite all little problems we had a fantastic shoot.
Many thanks to Shaunah ( the female model) for beings so patient, Ferry ( my friend, assistant and also model) and Bas Bakermans for hosting his garden again ( beautiful place!!)
 
26x26 ambrotype on aluminium
Dallmeyer 5a 22"at f 5.6
Exposure time 4 seconds