Making portraits with a vintage process is a deliberate and slow choice. Image creation that is measured in minutes per image, not images per second. Working with this slow method allows me to take time with my subject: time to visualize, connect and see more.
Photographing with a large format camera is quite slow. Not only does the setup for the portrait and the recording of the images take time, but the sensitized paper is about 1/16 as sensitive as the 100 iso setting on modern cameras. The extra time I gain with my subject creates a space for us, photographer and subject, to make images with a different depth than when using modern equipment. The process also reveals the impact of the unseen “third actor,” the camera, in the portrait-making process and its effect on the final image.
These images are from an ongoing project using a Deardorff 8×10 large-format view camera and light-sensitive paper for the negative. The roots of this process date back to Talbot’s Salt Print process of 1835, where the light-sensitive paper was used to make a negative then contact printed to make a positive print.
You can view images from this project and learn about the process in the gallery
The images above are from a session with a mother and her son.
