The Washington DC based SilverCore Photographers collective was founded in 2012 with the aim of bringing together film photographers who are interested in showing their work and helping to preserve the craft side of photography. The starting material must be silver based…... at the core!
The SilverCore members produce their images with equipment ranging from 8X10 Large Format down to 110 Subminiature format. The finished work produced may be silver gelatin prints made in a traditional darkroom, alternative process contact prints, or digital prints made with inkjet printers.
My current work involves the use of an 8”x10" sheet film camera. When I take a picture, I spend approximately 20 minutes placing film in the film holders. Another 30 to 60 minutes is spent setting up the shot.
Camera adjustments add another 30 minutes to the process. The exposed sheet of film can be processed in roughly 30 minutes. And, the resulting 8”x10” negative is used to make a direct contact print on watercolor paper…Add another 1 to 5 days.
It is pretty easy to see that the sharpness and speed emphasized in most camera advertisements is of little relevance in my world.
Apart from the fact that I simply enjoy working with film, chemicals, manual cameras, enlargers, watercolor paper, and hand made emulsions…much of my efforts as a photographer are focused on the production of physical prints with a tonality which is enhanced by the use of film.
LomoChrome Purple is a film available through lomography.com and Lomography Gallery Stores. The film produces rich violet tones for most subjects, but also shifts many other colors. Grass and trees become bright violet, while blues may shift to a bright green, and reds may not shift at all. The effect varies depending on exposure. Although the name suggests that it is a transparency film, the instructions state that it should be processed in C41 chemistry, the processed film comes out as a negative.
Cross-processing is the act of developing film in chemicals that weren’t designed for that specific type of film. Examples of this are developing E-6 film in C41 chemistry, C41 film in E-6 chemistry, or E-6 film in black & white chemistry. Developing E-6 film in C41 chemistry is most common. This often results in images becoming grainier than they normally would and shifted colors. Depending on film, exposure, and the method of processing or printing, the images may have a green, cyan, or violet cast, or have higher than normal contrast. This unpredictable process is not favored by labs because of the potential for contamination of chemistry, so some photographers choose to do the processing themselves.
Early on as a street photographer, I canvassed deserted urban neighborhoods mainly at night. The
resulting images are simply graphic and stark. There are many aspects of photography that I am involved in
today including digital. But the simple elegance and romantic tones of a gray scale are what I strive for in the images that I have shot over the past several decades. Emulsion-based film along with the various types of intriguing paper, alluring chemistry and beautiful glass are what I use to compose my canvas.
When the aroma of a darkroom hits my brain – creative black and white thoughts get agitated. There is something intoxicating about the aroma of film chemistry that has left its indelible mark.
Mechanics of photography, “writing with light,” the action of a photon striking a molecule of silver in a
gelatine suspension. Just as unpolished silverware turns black, that, in essence, is the nature of film and paper.
The processing of a print awakens the latent silver causing it to bloom and rise to the surface, like whales
coming up for air. These blacks are deep, laying in wait within the paper. Only the light calls the silver to
appear. Aligned by the camera, summoned by alchemy, caught; at the decisive moment.
•Single, isolated photos – one image per two-page spread – fail to communicate the urban reality.
•Therefore: use multiple photos per two-page spread.
•However: three or more photos become sensory overload to the audience.
•Therefore: use diptychs – two images per two-page spread – as a happy medium.
Curating the best diptychs
•The two images should be “similar but different.”
–Lighting and contrast.
–Color.
–Facial expressions.
–Gestures.
–Social station: rich/poor, young/old, gender, ethnicity.
A show titled 'Still Searching' can beggar the query 'what are you searching for, and why don't you
show when you've found it'?
Artists have always searched and continue to search for means to realize their vision; the search
includes harnessing the materials and tools of their mediums.
SilverCore Photographers; - 'using silver-based materials, at the core of our images';
we still search for what we can achieve and produce with our tools and materials, conceived in a pre-digital
imaging time, but still of use, today. Our ages range from two decades to a half-dozen; we span a firmly
pre-digital imaging time, to today's digital imaging-dominant time. We all utilize digital capture, as required
and desired. But, we all find the time to work with pre-digital imaging era conceived tools and materials,
more out of desire, perhaps, than requirement.
Silver-based materials -films - are our 'paints'. Lenses are our 'paint brushes', different optics offering
different renderings and strokes. The camera, 35mm, medium format, large format, is our well-tooled box to hold our films and our lenses in tandem. Those lenses, conceived, created, and produced in that firmly
pre-digital imaging age, are not always easily (or economically!) adaptable for digital capture. To search
out, what some of those vintage and fascinating optics can produce, in tandem with our own visions, we
need our well-tooled boxes. Mr. Winterbottom's images specify selection of all three, lens, box, and film.
To further realize that vision, our 'canvasses' are our tangible prints. We can use traditional silver gelatin
papers. Or, inkjet papers. Watercolor papers. Handmade papers. Silver, at the core; not necessarily at the
final. Mr. George's selection and handling of paper, alone, merits examination. Ms. Chen utilizes metal. This
catalog cannot truly represent their work; it must be seen. Our tangible, realized prints may come to us
curling slowly out an archival printer, unwrapped from a carefully packaged parcel via custom lab, or, (best
of all?) forming in the trays of darkroom chemistry, as prized by Ms. Nizborski, Mr. Sandoval, and Mr. Mason.
A common thread of all our artists' statements: the time to compose, create, and produce our image.
Digital imaging has certainly its own pre and post-production requirements, but with silver…
The time to compose an image can be identical in both; but without that rear LCD screen….
Silver also demands time for:
'did I get it?'
will I get it chemically processed properly?'
'did I get it?
'oh. now, how do I get it from this?'
To quote Mr. Herfort, 'there is no Undo.'
You learn your tools, you learn your materials, you believe you know what to expect and you get what you've expected… or you go back and try again, further armed with the experience of the most recent attempt.