STUDIO SESSION

UWE BEHRENDT
“PORTRÄTSTUDIO MIT COLLODIUM-WET-PLATE-TECHNIK”

Saturday, November 16, 2019, 3–7 pm



Workshop theme

Working with a large format camera, wet-plate photography, analogue photography, portrait, darkroom work.


Time schedule

Four-hour-session. At the beginning Uwe Behrendt will give a briefintroduction to the world of wet-plate-photography, the needed chemicals and the necessary accessories. The participants then have timeto go through the entire process with Mr. Behrendt, which includes using the large format plate camera, making a portrait and the darkroom work.


Equipment

Please bring clothes that you do not mind getting dirty. All chemicals and materials are provided and included in the workshop fees.


Location

Studio Uwe Behrendt

Eschersheimer Landstraße 355

60320 Frankfurt am Main

Language: German
Price members: 300 EUR
Price non members: 400 EUR
Number of participants: Min./ max. 3
Registration deadline: November 7, 2019
Duration: 4 Hours

A treasure from the early days of photography


This studio workshop is the perfect introduction into the world of wet-plate photography, a procedure which was invented in 1851. It is directed towards those who would like to create portraiture also as a unique-one of a kind object. The finished photographic plate can be taken home after the workshop.

Technical knowledge is not a requirement for this workshop.

For this historical technique specialist Uwe Behrendt uses a large format mahogany bellows camera. Similar as in the beginning of photography coated glass plates are used. That contain collodion and a photosensitive silver nitrate layer which are directly exposed in the soluble wet state. Afterwards the exposed plate has to be directly developed and fixed in the darkroom.


The deceleration in the photographic process is one of the secrets of the process. The results are extremely expressive portraits. The coincidences that manifest themselves through this process make these works unrepeatable.


This studio session includes a thorough description of the photographic process. The wet-plates will be developed together with the course instructor. Each participant will be able to coat, expose and develop his own glass wet-plate in the format of 13 x 18cm.

Uwe Behrendt was born 1955 in Helmstedt. As the great-grandson of the photo pioneer Oscar Gutzeit (1859–1943) he belongs to a 100-year-old dynasty of photographers. 
He completed his apprenticeship in Frankfurt am Main and then graduated from the Frankfurter Akademie für Kunst und Gestaltung (today Frankfurter Akademie für Kommunikation und Design). He started his first studio for advertising photography in a double garage. Uwe Behrendt received the Matador award for the camera from the trade press for his lingerie campaign. This was followed by numerous jobs for international advertising agencies, as well as for well-known communication campaigns in the finance-, cosmetics, food- and computer industry.
In addition to his professional advertising photography he has long made personal experimental creative photography using historical alternative processes such as cyanotypes and ambrotypes.
Today, Behrendt follows the philosophy “back to the roots”, working with a large-format camera on a book project “Faces of Frankfurt” using the fascinating collodion-wet-plate technique. He is one of the few experts for this process which dates back from the pioneering days of photographic art.
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