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"

dinsdag 18 augustus 2015

The making of "Swan lake"

The idea for making this plate was in my mind for months already.
The problem was finding the perfect location for making it.
We needed to find a shallow pond and had to make a
sturdy platform for the ballet dancer to stand on.

As the both the dress and swan were white we also needed cloudy weather
to have a bit more control over the exposure.

I bought 5 umbrella stands (4 for the platform and one for the swann)
and placed wooden sticks into them.
That made it possible to adjust both the platform and swan in height.
That was a must as they both should be able to "dance" on the water surface.

Despite the cloudy weather is was extremely difficult to nail the exposure.
So making this plate took us about 5 hours and the very final plate came out just great.

Many thanks to the whole team:
Heather May (model) and her husband Jan,
Ferry van de Vliet (assistant and photographer)
and Patrice Lesueur (Lightinabox) video.

Click here for : The making of video

 
"Swan Lake...."
26.5 x 26.5 cm tintype
Dallmeyer 5d petzval at f7
exposure time 1 second











 
 

 





zondag 2 augustus 2015

"The Kite Runner"

The making of "The Kite Runner" again took us 2 days...

Placing and adjusting the kites into the tree took us more than 1 1/2 hour during the first day.
The day started cloudy (which I prefer) but as soon as we were ready the sun "exploded".
As I prefer to use my petzvals wide open there was just to much light for decent exposures.
Taking of the cap and putting it on again within 1/4 of a second is simply impossible to do.
I gave it several tries but as expected it just didn't work

So we had to take down everything and did the same thing the next day.
Cloudy day, almost no wind so perfect.
Again it took us some plates. It's Always for adjusting the final details.
And just before it started to rain we made the final plate.
 
 



Some random pictures of these 2 days copied from the video files.