Collodion Quarterly

[OldCrow]

So I have been bouncing around the idea of putting together a simple publication for the wet plate community. I have bounced the idea of a few forum members and they all seemed to think it would be a good little thing to have.

Let me be straight about the idea so no one thinks it is for some commercial gain or anything like that. I am a big fan of the turn of the century quarterly publications that were around that contained the works of what have come to be known as some of the most recognized artists of our time. Camera work stands out among these for me. There seemed to be something fantastic about holding in your hand good quality reproductions of work by current practitioners of the evolving arts and process at the time. I like the in hand idea of it all.

I would like to be able to display work sent in by the artists, that they feel show what it is they want it to show. While also displaying a clear notion of their grasp of their medium. No preconceived ideas of what is right or wrong as far as the work goes. Just simply quality works that move the viewer in some way or another.

I would also like to compile a list of those giving workshops and classes in the various processes around the country. So there is an easy index for new comers to search and find people that are respected in the field, so they can get a good footing as they start out. Without fear of being ripped off and sent in a direction that could actually hurt them in the long run.

There would also be a section for the people that are providing services and products based around wet plate. The whole Dana/Yaquina thing really got me thinking of how the internet gives people the ability to change their name and keep on with their shitty practices and screw people. So I think a list compiled with community backing and support would be a great guide to help people searching for products or services and would give the supply channel a little help. I would not be seeking ad revenue for these slots.

Also I have spoken to a few well known experts on different subjects about them adding in a page once in a while to help school some of us that are not up on all the tricks and unknown goodies to be had out there. Wisdom is a great thing.

Then add in tidbits and articles taken from publications from the wet plate era, from the likes of the Philadelphia Photographer and such.

So in a nutshell I am looking to spend my time this winter putting something like this together. I am curious who would be interested in getting something like this in the mail every few months? I am talking to a few printing firms here in NYC that could do it for a fair price. So it would simply cost the subscribers what it cost to print the issue and then the postage by media mail. Which would not be much.

So who would be interested in sharing their work, words and wisdom? I want this to have a very community driven movement behind it. Plus it would be a cool thing to have on your coffee table at home when friends stop by.

I am thinking if it can be done to do it in a nice larger format so the detail does not get lost.

Well its an idea. Sorry for the rant.

Go check it out, sorry about the video. I am not super video savy.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/276126265/collodion-quarterly

and of course

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Collodion-Quarterly/220004354738983

If anyone wants to send me some samples of their work or gives me permission to pull work from their online galleries, please let me know. Nycgh@hotmail.com
I already have some outstanding artists adding their work.

Sorry the main site for this project is lagging, I am not super web design savy.

[Richard M. Coda]

You should look into MagCloud... magazine format only, but the quality is pretty good and the price is very fair.

[OldCrow]

You should look into MagCloud... magazine format only, but the quality is pretty good and the price is very fair.

I am looking at them, but would love to have this done by a small place, not some massive faceless corp. But it will boil down to quality. If the big guys does it better, then so be it. But I would love to support some artists and skill craftsmen with this if it can.


Oh and the correct facebook link
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Collodion-Quarterly/220004354738983

[r.e.]

I think that the use of video and Kickstarter are terrific. I am kind of less enamored of the attack on photographers who use digital technology that accompanies the video.

Specifically:

"It is hard to comprehend that their are people calling themselves photographers that have never seen a negative, or worked with chemicals. Its scary."

"We stand on the brink of oblivion with the digital downfall of photography as a skill, and trade. Sad."

I wonder about this too:

"The outstanding artists that can not get a gallery show or in some rich and posh connected museum show need a place to display their work so others can see the ground they are breaking. Bring artists from all over the world into a collective where they can be shown next to their peers. Without having to sell their souls to do it."

It isn't clear to me how those kinds of Us vs Them statements help the project, not to mention your efforts to raise money; indeed, they are quite liable to turn off some people. They did me.

[OldCrow]

I think that the use of video and Kickstarter are terrific. I am kind of less enamored of the attack on photographers who use digital technology that accompanies the video.

Specifically:

"It is hard to comprehend that their are people calling themselves photographers that have never seen a negative, or worked with chemicals. Its scary."

"We stand on the brink of oblivion with the digital downfall of photography as a skill, and trade. Sad."

I wonder about this too:

"The outstanding artists that can not get a gallery show or in some rich and posh connected museum show need a place to display their work so others can see the ground they are breaking. Bring artists from all over the world into a collective where they can be shown next to their peers. Without having to sell their souls to do it."

It isn't clear to me how those kinds of Us vs Them statements help the project, not to mention your efforts to raise money; indeed, they are quite liable to turn off some people. They did me.


Are you joking? I am trying to be able to put together images from the artists that do not have the ability to gain access to huge galleries and reap in the public notice because they are not in the circle or in the region where they can do so. There are artists all over the world that are amazing and they are shooting in their basement, and could care less about those things. Yet they enjoy sharing their work with others. So this is an outlet for them, that is not on an internet driven machine.

Sorry about you not liking that I used video, but kickstarter will NOT let you put up a page without one. You can not get around it, at all. As you can tell by the video I put up, I am not interested or care much for it. That is about as digital savvy as I get.

I am not sure if you are aware of how kickstarter works. I am simply protecting everyone interested in seeing this come together. I do not have two thousand dollars laying around to lay out for the printing costs of the first run, but if people pre-buy then it can happen. Once it has started, then it is off and rolling. I am not taking any money for my time on this project at all. I am also investing a lot of my own money that is very limited on account of me being a disabled veteran on a set income monthly.

If you are put off by the us vs them, then do not back it. If you do not like the way I said that digital is driving photography into its grave then do not back it. I will not change my wording or view. Digital images are great and there are amazing masterpieces done in the medium. Yet it is not a photograph.

Digital images are not real. You can not say they are photographs. They are digitally rendered images. You may in turn reproduce those images on another substrate, but they are to created in a photographic process first hand. There is no material being used to create the first image. This is a clear separation between the groups of analog and digital only photographers.

The efforts to raise money are based around trying to start something from nothing. I have no other choice but to try and get the community involved in making this happen. If you are on other forums you would see that there is a great deal of community input that is forming this. It can not come together without funding, and sadly the only way to reach people is to straight out ask. So thats what I am doing. I am not asking for a hand out. I am asking people to buy into the magazine. They are getting something for what they put in. Also they get to be proud that they played a huge role in the making it happen. I am one person with the help of others trying to start something that can be great if people have open minds and willing hearts.

If this all turns you off, then so be it. What the people that are supporting this are trying to do is something that is very about going backwards and making it about the value of the skill and the knowledge and the passing of that knowledge. Its not about making money, not about outing anyone. Its not about one person standing their own. Its simply about opening eyes and inspiring each other through a simple form of visual communication. For every person that says it wont work, there are a thousand that say it will.

Vision and drive, changes the world.

[r.e.]

Responses to certain of your statements:

"Are you joking?"

No, I'm not.

"Sorry about you not liking that I used video."

I said "I think that the use of video [is] terrific."

"I am not sure if you are aware of how kickstarter works."

I said "I think that the use of kickstarter [is] terrific."

The rest of your comments reinforce what I understood to be your message in the text that goes with your video.

Thanks for telling me that I understood correctly.

My response to your question/challenge/whatever:

"If you are put off by the us vs them, then do not back it".

is that I won't back it, because I think that Us vs. Them in this context is rather melodramatic, not to mention deranged.

I guess the remaining question is whether your views are shared by the other photographers who are featured on your project's Facebook site, assuming that they have a say in where the project is going.

I'll refrain from commenting on how funny it is that you are using digital media - including low quality cheap video - to try to raise money for this project, while telling photographers that use digital technology not only that they are not photographers, but that they are dirt.

[OldCrow]

Rory... I am not sure what it is that you are trying to say with your ramble. I am not here to get into a pissing contest over what format people shoot with. As I said there are many great works done in digital. Never once did I say I am against digital either.

You seem bothered by the fact that I stated that a digital image is not a photograph with material being used that has a value. Material as in film, and chemicals.

You will hold back from commenting that I am using digital format to go about reaching people? When did I say that digital was the devil?

I do not know what you are getting at, or why you are personally offended by my statements about digital. There are many forms of alternative photographic processes that I am hoping to involve in this publication, simply to showcase the skills and know how that are being lost by the rapid progression and downsizing of the printed photographic industry.

You seem that you are clearly trying to turn this into a battle of wit or a insult match, which have zero interest in. I have no intentions of outing anyone or making anyone not feel welcome in what I am trying to put together. You can go on about the us vs them all you wish, but it seems to me that you are trying to make this about you.

I apologize to anyone that has had to read any of this. I just want to put together a publication that has a focus on alternative processes that is not money and ad driven that anyone that enjoys what they do and wants to share it with others in a printed form, can feel free to do so. If thats so wrong, then feel free to not support it. Yet if you think that its something you would enjoy, come on along for the ride.

[r.e.]

Greg, I think that it is an interesting project, but the fact of the matter is that you have made comments about photographers who use digital media that are offensive, and that will not create support, outside a very small group of people, for what you are trying to do.

Your last post is in fact a climb down.

Maybe you should just try to progress from here, starting with re-writing the text that accompanies your project's video. Start by getting rid of the anger, pomposity and contempt that seems to permeate what you are writing in relation to this project. Seriously.

[r.e.]

Greg,

Why should the launch of a quarterly journal on wet plate be sold by an attack on photographers who use digital processes, and on photographers whose work is shown in high-end galleries or well-known museums?

That's what I don't get.

Maybe you and your associates should sell this journal on its own merits instead of on the basis of attacks on other photographers, galleries and museums. Just a thought.

[OldCrow]

Let me be real clear here.

Never once did I attack anyone, or insult anyones choice of format. You are building that up in your own context of the statement I made. I have said numerous times that there is amazing digital work, and amazing digital artists.

I did state that digital is not a photograph in the traditional sense of the word. Where the image is created on a substrate using a chemical light sensitive process.

Further more I made my comments on the people who sell in large galleries based upon the common impression that only the people that are known can get seen and published. I did not insult anyone who shows in a big gallery. Just from being someone that has dealt in that world, I am very aware that you have give up a great deal of who you are and the work that you enjoy to be a more "Sellable" artist. Which for me seems very similar to selling off a piece of who you are at the core, or your soul for lack of better terms.

You would like to turn this in to a "Black or white" or a "This or that". Its not. Nor will it ever be.

You have done no research into what is going on with you, nor have you tried to ask any questions. You simply want to turn this into something ugly and driven by some under lying motives. Its not.

Like I said prior, sorry for anyone having to deal with this. I am in no way trying to out anyone or say one is better then the other. I am just trying to give the everyday alternative process artist and outlet that may have the chance of reaching people that they would not prior had a chance to reach. This is not in anyway an attempt to make one above the other or say anything about anyones choice of medium. It is for the simple passing on ideas, knowledge and images.

I am not rich, nor do I have extra money to avoid "Cheap low quality video" for the kickstarter. Nor is it important to have some big deal of a video for this project. It is an honest attempt at creating something that many feel is needed in this community of artists. I am also aware that not everyone is going to like the idea or back the idea. This is very acceptable to me. It seems that people never get upset about ideas that have no merit or solid thought behind them. Its the ideas that stand a good chance on becoming something, that people who can not connect with the reason or the purpose or the message get upset over.

I think I have made it clear that I respect all forms of imaging and the art that comes from it. Digital can be mind blowing and awe inspiring. Never once did the words "Digital photographers are as low as dirt" or anything of the sort. Some please do not judge this project on one persons view and translation of the words and ideas behind it.

Thanks.

[atlcruiser]

I read the kickstarter blurb and did not really find much issue with it. I am not sure if it has changed from the original or not.

I do not agree with some of the stated assumptions about digital process but honestly, I dont care.

I am interested in alternative processes and hope to get into them eventually. This seems like a good idea worth backing, so it did :)

[Gary Samson]

Greg,
Will you be proofreading and editing this publication yourself or do you have assistance from others? Are contributing writers being paid for their articles? thanks.

[r.e.]

I read the kickstarter blurb and did not really find much issue with it. I am not sure if it has changed from the original or not.

The text accompanying the video has been completely rewritten and it is longer and more informative. All for the better

[madmax12]

Please do this!!!! I would be one of the first subscribers.

[D. Bryant]

Are you joking?

Ditto for me. Put a positive spin on your project. Definitely move away from the Us vs Them POV.

A lot of digital photographers have interest in participating and learning about old school technologies. Be inclusive not exclusive with your approach.

[OldCrow]

Greg,
Will you be proofreading and editing this publication yourself or do you have assistance from others? Are contributing writers being paid for their articles? thanks.


Being that this is going to be a non-profit project there is not going to be pay for the writers at first, but if things progress well and we can offer some pay down the line we will be very happy to do so.

There are a few people working together to shape the way this magazine is going to come together as far as editing and final print proofing. I am simply the person that will be focusing the most of their time to bring it all together.

I am not going back on this, but there was never an us/vs them thing going on. Just simply things being misconstrued. So I took the time to clear out any of the overly passionate verbiage that could be taken incorrectly or that could have be taken in any way negative.

This is going to be the most community based publication in wet plate photography. Everyone that cares enough to contribute will find they are welcome.

It is very hard to put together a product that everyone would be happy with, so that I have to understand. I am aware that there will be people that are always going to find a fault in everything. I also have to be aware that people tend to find the faults in things before finding the best parts of it.

So I opted to be very clear and appeal to the side of logic with the edit of the kickstarter. I have in no way changed what I was saying, just simply the way I was saying it. This is going try and be the best international wet plate based publication that the entire community practicing wet plate can be a part of. The pro's can help the new comers and the new comers may inspire the pros. World wide wet plate!

So for anyone that is interested in being a part of this project, please feel free to contact. The advice, influence and energy is greatly welcomed.

For anyone that is interested in subscribing or advertising, we ask you to head on over to the kickstarter page and help this get off the ground. If we work together there is no way that this will not happen. Only with the support now from the people that are going to be a part of this later will we make it!

Hope everyone had a fantastic holiday.

GH

[taulen]

Under two days left, and we are so close ! Please join in ;)