BTS: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ...
Here's a behind the scenes post about my photography, but I'll include a fun recent image at the end. In short, some really great stuff has happened. Some crappy stuff has happened. I'd also really appreciate your feedback on something ...
Amazing:
Attending the artist's reception for the 2024 (s)Light of Hand exhibition that I was included in. The gallery is The Photographer's Eye: A Creative Collective in downtown Escondido. Since I was fortunate enough to have sufficient frequent flier points for a quick trip, I decided to attend in person. I'm really glad that I did!
First, this was only the second juried exhibition that I've been able to be a part of. This was also the first exhibition that I was actually able to see in person, and it was thrilling to both 1) see my print framed and on a wall with other great artwork; and 2) see lots of amazing examples of alternative process photography in person.
It was specifically awesome to see some examples of alt process prints that I had only read about in the flesh. I was particularly taken by a print that used cyanotype over ziatype, a hybrid inkjet/Van Dyke Brown print, and a large collage of cyanotype-on-fabric. Great stuff all around, and I'm starting to research what alt process that I'm going to be exploring next. (It's either between ziatypes or taking another crack at gum printing ...)
Craptacular:
My external data drive, a high-end RAID 1 array, has failed. Well, I'm not sure whether the drives themselves have failed or whether they're dutifully replicating a corrupt filesystem journal with 100% accuracy. The bad news is that this drive has ALL of my digital negatives, some 60,000 of my digital photographs and scanned negatives, and so I'm terrified that I've lost my data.
The good news is that I was zealous about backing up all of my data to the cloud. My standard practice is to do a full cloud backup after every photoshoot, and I just had a photoshoot last week. I've ordered a copy of my backed up data to be shipped to me on an external hard drive, but I have no idea how long it'll take to get to me. In the meantime, I'm downloading all of my backed up data to a new external hard drive. This is taking *forever* ... I'm currently sitting at 96+ hours elapsed and data 29% restored, with something like 331 more hours to go.
I no longer trust my RAID 1 array (which was super expensive and which I thought was worth it for its inherent redundant data protection). I'll use it for an offsite backup that's refreshed on a monthly basis or something.
Other Notes, New Image & Feedback Request
Right before my external RAID array crashed, I went through a fun little exercise. I knew that I had been in a creative slump for the past few years before becoming inspired and productive this last February. I've also been a fan of Adobe's Lightroom software since it was first released all the way back in 2007, some 17 years ago. I've found it indispensible for both efficient photo editing and library management. I organize my Lightroom catalogs by year, with a single catalog for each year I've been a photographer since 2001. I was able to easily tally the number of digital photographs (or scanned negatives) I've taken every year, and then create a chart showing my annual photographic productivity:
In 2023, I shot 490 photographs. In 2024, I'm on a pace to shoot something like 29,000 photographs. More isn't always better (and I'm working to intentionally take fewer digital exposures on my shoots), but it's indisputable that I'm inspired and productive right now!
Speaking of recent work, here is a sexy portrait from a recent boudoir shoot with an amazing friend. I love shooting "models", but I also love photographing real people. And, pixel for pixel, there's as much emotional intensity and sensuality in this picture of a gloriously real woman as in any of the other art I've produced recently. I'm proud of this.
Feedback Request
So, I'd love your feedback about something. Please email me ([email protected]), connect with me on Instagram (@ignatiusbug), or leave a comment using the form below. I know that I have a few readers, and I'd really love to hear what you think.
I'm thinking about doing two things: (1) starting a Patreon or OnlyFans; and (2) starting a boudoir photography business.
OnlyFans or Patreon is less about monetization than connecting with people and sharing my content in the way it's meant to be seen. I don't see charging more than a couple of bucks a month, although it would be fun to send folks prints from time to time too. Would y'all be interested in this?
So ... about that boudoir photography business idea:
Someone very wise once told me not to ruin a perfectly good hobby by trying to make money at it. I've lived by this. But, photographing models is expensive. And, artistically, I'm just as creative, inspired, and fulfilled by shooting real people as I am by shooting models. I'm reasonably good at straight/"vanilla" sexy portraits/bedroom boudoir, and I believe I could make a few bucks, have some artistic fun, and fund additional model photoshoots by offering my services.
I need to look into this more, but I'd love hearing about anyone's similar experiences.
Updates, (s)Light of Hand, and the Occult Shoot
It has been an incredible summer for my art. I don't think I've ever been this artistically productive, and I've had several breakthroughs in my processes. I've also gotten a lot more comfortable with the idea that my art is erotic and sensual. I've made enough new art over the past three months to support dividing my work into four major categories: Wet Plate, Gilded Cyanotype, Psychedelic, and "Anima" (for "normal" stuf). This has justified and triggered a rework of my online portfolio and, even scarier, I'm actually making efforts to get my work into at least one gallery and get a show before the end of 2025. My pace of shooting is necessarily going to slow down, and then halt, as summer ends and we head into fall and winter. I'm going to be diving deeper into some of the stuff I mentioned above, and featuring some of the shoots I've done, in the months to come.
The biggest news over the last three months was that I fought down my imposter syndrome sufficiently to enter some of my recent work into a juried competition. Specifically, I entered an alternative photography juried competition called 2024 (s)Light of Hand, judged by Michael Kirchoff and hosted by the Photographer's Eye Collective.
I entered three of my gilded cyanotype prints, and was delighted to learn that one of my prints was selected by the juror for inclusion in an exhibition at the gallery: Oracle Anima, featuring my muse Alice Crowe (Instagram & OnlyFans):
Oracle Anima
I had fun choosing a frame for this print, which is required for the collective to display it in the exhibition. I almost never frame my prints, and I knew that I wanted to find something in gold that would compliment the print's gold leaf. Here's what I ended up going with:
I'm really proud of how this print turned out, and I'm even more proud that it's getting some recognition. A lot of the credit for this print is due to Alice Crowe, who had an idea for an Aleister Crowley-inspired occult/Thelema shoot. Here's a shot of good ol' Aleister in a "Magus" Thelema costume:
This sounded like a really fun concept shoot to me, and so Alice and I collaborated on the wardrobe, accessories, etc. Because she was so excited about this shoot concept, Alice talked a model friend into joining us for the shoot: Lorna Lynne (@moonladylorna on Instagram). So, not only did I get to have fun with a concept shoot, but it ended up being the first shoot I've ever worked with two models at the same time. Not going to lie: It was challenging!
I really wanted this shoot to be special, so I packed up my wet plate camera and portable darkroom and prepared to have my first wet plate session on-location, out of the comfort of my garage. I was totally nervous, and between my technical screw ups with the wet plate and the limited number of plates I was able to make, we got one semi-usable plate. There was subject motion, since the exposure was 10 seconds long and I don't think I properly communicated just how still I needed the models to be during the exposure. I also totally screwed up the collodion pour and development, which was particularly challenging in the tight confines of the portable darkroom.
This isn't a technically great wet plate -- it's actually the opposite: it's crap. But as an image, it still totally works:
In any event, the shoot was a lot of fun. I won't say that it exceeded my vision -- I'd love to do it again with additional/different poses and props, probably in a studio. But Alice loved it and it resulted in "Oracle Anima" -- which I think is the best piece of art I've ever made -- so I'm not complaining.
Here are some behind the scenes shots and other images that I'm particularly fond of from this shoot:
I was also, very intentionally and I'm sure clumsily, channeling Diane Arbus here:
Finally, here's the original digital (please don't judge) color photograph that became "Oracle Anima":
Wet Plate: Collodion Contamination Breakthrough!
The following three photos show a really stubborn problem I've been unsuccessfully trying to fix for the past three months. Turns out, I was causing this problem by introducing contamination into my collodion stock bottle.
So, I've been struggling with a really frustrating problem with my plates. Not every time, but really frequently my plates would have a horrible "blotchiness" right where I start my collidion pours. My mentor called this problem "veiling," but the normal trick to fix veiling (very gently rubbing the plate after its fixed with a wet cotton ball) wasn't working. I've been banging my head against the wall trying to troubleshoot this problem, which was ruining something like 80% of the plates I made.
The biggest clue I had when troubleshooting was that the blotchiness always appeared on my plates right where I started my collodion pours. The blotchiness wasn't evident on the freshly-poured plates, and didn't show up until the development step. I experimented with my pouring technique -- I tried pouring more slowly, more quickly, more forcefully, and more gently. Nothing worked. I tried using different collodion recipes, but nothing would fix this issue.
After two months of frustration, I *finally* figured out what the issue is: contamination in my collodion caused by draining my plates directly back into my collodion stock bottle, instead of into a waste bottle. This was causing partially-dried collodion contamination to end up back in my stock bottle, and the partially-dried collodion contamination ended up on the next plate I poured.
I am SO FREAKING RELIEVED that I've figured out this issue. I shot seven plates over the weekend, and didn't have this blotchy contamination problem in any of them!
I've still got a long ways to go before I'll consider myself good at wet plate collodion. But this is a huge breakthrough, and now I can focus on the other issues plaguing my plates.
Muse Collaboration: Suicide Girls Style 1970s Shoot with Mrs. Wilders
I was privileged to collaborate with one of my favorite models, Mrs. Wilders, on a Suicide Girls-style shoot. I've been a fan of Suicide Girls since ~2005, and it has been a longstanding goal to get published on there. While we've decided not to submit this set to Suicide Girls, I'm really proud of how it turned out. The photography part of this photoshoot was the least challenging thing about it -- Mrs. Wilders and I put a lot of work into her costumes, and it was a big cash investment to rent an awesome 70s set. I was particularly proud of finding the *perfect* avocado & orange minidress for Mrs. Wilders to wear, along with a new old stock pair of 70s glasses frames.
I've written about this previously, but it's so good to have found a few local models who are real creative collaborators. I still love booking the occasional traveling model who passes through my area, but it's a lot more work to come up with a shoot theme, find a location, procure some good outfits, etc. than it is to do the "naked lady standing somewhere and turning in a circle" thing.
We ended up shooting three photosets with three different outfits during the two hours we had rented the studio for. Mrs. Wilders has posted the first set on her Patreon, and will be posting the other two sets there in the future. If you'd like to see these full sets, please visit Mrs. Wilders' Patreon page and become a subscriber! I subscribe myself, and it's a lot of fun to see other photographers' work with a model I love.
I may be revisiting the 70s set with another model in June or July -- the outfits are so good it'd be a shame not to use them again. In that event, I *will* be trying to submit them to Suicide Girls!
I spent a lot of time trying to get the perfect look with these photos. If anyone is curious, I got this warm/soft/grainy/vivid look by using Fuji's Velvia film emulation mode on my X-T5, changing the white balance to give it a warm vintage feel, and adding grain to make the shots look like they were taken using daylight negative film with indoor tungsten lighting. All things being equal, I'd still prefer to shoot film exclusively. All things are NOT equal, however, and I have no regrets using digital exclusively on this shoot.
Muse Collaboration: Suicide Girls Style Shoot with Alice Crowe
Alice Crowe, my favorite model, and I decided to try a "Suicide Girls" style shoot. Suicide Girls pretty much invented the "alt-model" genre, and it has been a goal of mine to get a set published there. (Foreshadowing: There's more on this to come in the future.)
Suicide Girls has a pretty distinctive look: Soft even lighting, razor-thin depth of field, and a progression of shots that has a theme of some sort.
I rented a neat location through Peerspace.com for the shoot based on some really amazing photographs of the location's interior. Unfortunately, I realized as soon as I got there that there were several neat shooting spots, but each of them had a different type of lighting. The best lighting in the location was in the stairwell: it was north-facing light into a dark interior, which leant itself to chiaroscuro. The best looking furniture, etc. was lit by a mixture of natural light and dim tungsten bulbs. Ah so.
I classify this as a Good Problem to have: I had two distinct looks with gorgeous lighting, but no way to put them together for a unified-theme set of 30 or 40 photos. So, they weren't suitable for a Suicide Girls set. So it goes. They are, however, wonderful photographs on their own. I just need to present them as two separate sets so that the lighting differences aren't so obvious.
In any event, I've been so frustrated lately with wet plate (blog entry forthcoming) that it was really fun to just "Push the Easy Button" and use my digital rig: A Fujifilm X-T5 with Fujinon 50mm f/1.0 and 35mm f/2.0 lenses. This is a great setup for my photography, although I am really starting to lust after the Fujinon 18-55mm f/2.8 zoom. I spend a lot of my time scooting around on my knees and butt, fighting with my tripod, and tripping over furniture on shoots. Having a zoom lens would make life a lot easier ... but it'd be hard to go from f/1.0 and f/2.0 to f/2.8, especially on my X-T5's crop sensor.
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I've always wanted to have a Muse: A real creative partner who would bring her own inspiration and ideas to our collaborations.
I've shot Alice Crowe three times now. I'm having so much fun collaborating with her -- together we're working on a shoot concept that I'm really excited about. She's a really cool person with great taste in music, too. This is all to say that I'm having more fun with my art now than I have in years. I've found my Muse, and I'm delighted.
Don't get me wrong: I'm still stoked to have good relationships with Morgan Wilders and Lorna Lynne, and I'm still planning on booking other freelance traveling models as they pass through the Sacramento area. But there's something pretty special about having a trust relationship with a Muse!
(This is an example of an image that was only possible to make because of trust between photographer and model.)