Some Wet Plate Work In China

[Hugo Zhang]

Wet plate is getting hot in China, spearheaded by Tuant in this forum and some others. I know some 24x32" or 36"(?) wet plate cameras are in the making. But I found the work, "Simple Song", of this Chinese wet plate artist very inspiring.

For his “Simple Song” project, Luo Dan employed the traditional collodion wet plate photographic process invented in 1850, spending several months traveling with a portable darkroom in remote and mountainous regions of China’s southern Yunnan Province. Looking to capture the purity of this photographic process, Luo Dan was able to reflect the authenticity found in rural life for many of China’s yet undeveloped regions, where the way of life has remained largely intact for hundreds of years. Many of the villages in this region were settled by Christian missionaries 100 years ago, where the local villagers are people of faith and devout churchgoers dressing up in their ethnic garments, or Sunday’s best. By bringing a reverence to both this photographic process and subject matter, Luo Dan’s “Simple Song” series is an effort to capture a sense of timelessness. An incredibly popular process in the mid-nineteenth century, wet plate collodion could render exquisite detail for photographers, but the laborious process of exposure and development also led to its decline towards the end of the century.
An acclaimed portrait and documentary photographer, Luo Dan has won numerous awards and recognition for his works “On the Road - Highway 318” (2006) and “North – South” (2008). Luo Dan was born in Chongqing, China, in 1968 and graduated from the Sichuan Fine Art Academy in 1992. He was given the Gold Award for Outstanding Artist at the Lianzhou International Photography Festival in 2008 for his body of work “North, South” (2008). This year he was recently awarded the Hou Dengke documentary photography prize, as well as voted best new photographer at the Dali International Photography Festival (2011). He currently lives and works in Chengdu, China.


http://www.m97gallery.com/artist/?artist=luo_dan&from=1

[Monty McCutchen]

Hugo,

Thanks for the link. Those are beautiful plates. Would love to see a 24 by 36 Wet Plate image in the flesh. For now I'll stick with the small stuff!

Monty

[Rain Dance]

Those are beautiful images. I like the look they have.

[ghostcount]

Awesome. Thanks Hugo.

[Jan Pedersen]

Thanks for posting Hugo. Wonderful work. 24x36", i can't even imagine the size.

[sully75]

that was awesome.

[Richard K.]

Thanks for the link to that amazing work, Hugo.

How much did you say a 18x22 with 2 holders would be? Maybe you better PM me that information, otherwise you'll be swamped with orders!!

[Hugo Zhang]

Thanks for the link to that amazing work, Hugo.

How much did you say a 18x22 with 2 holders would be? Maybe you better PM me that information, otherwise you'll be swamped with orders!!

Richard,

Are you getting into 18x22 wet plate? If you don't want to wait for a year, you can try 16x20 wet plate for now. See this one in action in Shanghai:

http://forum.xitek.com/showthread.php?threadid=925958

We can discuss this in PM.
Hugo

[sully75]

Hugo,

Just wondering, does Luo Dan have a book of that work? I'd buy it.

Paul

[Mark Sawyer]

Just another "thank you for the link", Hugo! Wonderful work like that is always good to see.

Large plates, for me at least, are only as impressive as the work that is on them. Luo Dan is setting the standard pretty high...