Back in May I held my first cyanotype workshop for the Center of Alternative Photography in New York City. On a day thereafter I was at the Center and its founder Eric Taubman showed me the new book, which his wife Joni Sternbach had recently published. Titled SurfLand, it offers her portraits of surfers produced with the tintype process and a text by Phillip Prodger. In September, Eric introduced me to Joni at a gallery opening in Chelsea, and I had a chance to find out more about her, tintypes and SurfLand.
Robert Schaefer: Working at the beach with the wind potentially blowing sand on the wet plate or into the camera would not be my choice for idea working conditions. How did you come to select a large format camera and wet plate tintype for this project?
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Joni Sternbach: I had been photographing at the water's edge since 1999 with film and with wetplate since 2004. The segue from abandoned structures to surfers evolved sort of naturally as I revisited the same location in my work. It's true that the beach does not have "ideal" working conditions, but it's also a really pleasant place to spend the day. I have been there as well when a storm's blown in and I've gotten rained on and had my whole kit turned upside down, but I think that might be par for the course with a landscape photographer.
RS: Are you a surfer? What made you choose to make portraits of surfers instead of say just swimmers at the beach?
JS: I am not a surfer. I think that's an important distinction. I came to the project as an outsider. Only over time did I become part of the community (if indeed I really am) by just showing up over and over again. I think it also gave me an objectivity that I might not have had otherwise.
I was intrigued by surfers from some previous work I had made: In my Sea/Sky series they found their way into one of my landscape photographs during a brief moment when the sun broke through a heavy cloud cover. When that happened my camera was positioned in such a way where in order to take the picture, I couldn't avoid their presence. I wasn't particularly interested at that time in including people (not to mention surfers) in my work, but the juxtaposition of the very tiny figures in the water contrasted against the dramatic lighting and big sky, ended up making the photograph very compelling. Also, I think of surfers very differently than bathers. They don't just come in and out of the water after a little exercise. They are people who interact with the ocean in a compelling way.
RS: Tell me about your background. Were you interested in photography and/or other art forms as a child?
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JS: Ah, the history. I was born in the Bronx and grew up in Yonkers, NY. I studied art in high school and in college (SVA) for several years until I switched majors to photography. I also had a brief stint as a weaver and spinner early on in college.
RS: The surfers appear very comfortable with being photographed. Did you have any problems at all in getting in positioning them to take the image? Were they interested in obtaining a copy of the final image?
JS: Most of the successful photographs I have taken show surfers being very comfortable with being photographed. In fact several people in the series really enjoy posing and have returned to have their photo taken more than once. The process of posing can be a little intimidating as each surfer has to stay in the same position while I frame the image and coat the plate and then finally snap the shutter. That could take anywhere from 5-10 minutes. All the time there are people on the beach watching and sometimes interacting, so they are "on view" as they wait around for the photograph to actually be taken. I give each person who poses a digital copy of their image and allow them to use it online in a non-commercial way as much as they like, but with photo credit. I also offer all surfers an 8.5x11" copy of their image and if they are interested in one of the larger prints that are editioned, they receive a generous surfer discount.
RS: What would you say was the most difficult aspect of the project?
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JS: There were several difficult parts of the project. In the beginning, I set up the 8x10 camera on the beach and just kind of hung around, trying to get a feel for the place and the people. Approaching strangers to tell them about my project and to get them interested was my first challenge. As people became interested they would be chatting around me while I was trying to frame the subject, or coat and develop the plate. I found all the conversation somewhat distracting. Working in the public eye was a new experience. Later on when I traveled out west, finding surfers on a weekday in the winter in California when there was very little surf was also hard.
RS: Is this your first book? Did you begin the project with the concept of turning it into a book? What advice would you give to photographers who want to turn a photography project into a book?
JS: I started the surfer project with no expectations. It wasn't till the second season of shooting that people kept asking me if I was making a book. Eventually I just said yes. This is my first book. There are many ways to get a book published these days. I was lucky enough to win the Critical Mass Book award and that's how SurfLand was published. For those of you who don't know about Critical Mass, it is a book competition sponsored by photolucida in Portland, Oregon. Each year hundreds of people compete for a monograph to be published of their work. They offer one hardbound and depending on the number of entries sometimes two softbound books. The judges are curators, gallerists, artists, photographers, critics, educators etc. I think one has to really believe in one's work. And having some good contacts never hurt anyone either. I began the book process however by making a few blurb books. That helped me to conceptualize the format much better.
RS: Have any photographers been inspirational to you in regards to subject matter or the process of tintype?
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JS: There are so many photographers whose work I love and looked at while beginning the wetplate process like Gustav LeGray, Baldus and Carleton Watkins. Bringing a contemporary aesthetic to the subject matter was really my greatest challenge and for that I looked more to photographers working with film, like Richard Misrach and Mark Ruweudel. I have had the opportunity of working with some really amazing wet plate photographers. NW Gibbons is someone quite special as he works with me making the 14x17 tintypes. His own work is landscape based and he is very comfortable with larger formats like 11x14 and 18x22. In terms of artists working with wet plate I think Sally Mann is probably the most well known, though she makes glass negatives and prints from them.
I saw her recent show Proud Flesh, a series of nude images of her husband. I think she works with the medium in a very poetic, creative and flexible way, utilizing the imperfections of the process to her advantage.
RS: Please take me through the process of photographing these surfers as to the camera(s) you use and then the tintype process.
JS: I begin first by finding (which can take time) and then posing the subject. Once the camera position is established I go back to the dark box, while my assistant waits with the subject. I coat the plate and it sensitizes in a bath of silver nitrate for at least three minutes and then it's placed in the camera back. I then return to the subject with the loaded camera back and (while it's wet) hope that they haven't gotten distracted or agitated and moved completely out of focus. I then remove the dark slide and take the picture. A typical exposure time ranges from 1/2 second to 3 seconds. I then return to the dark box and develop the picture. After it's developed I rinse it in daylight light and fix it while the subject is usually watching. I store the fixed plates it either in a shoe box full of water, or coat them with glycerine and place them in a plate box that stores them safely till I get home and can wash them. I use and 8x10 and 11x14 (adapted to 14x17") Deardorff cameras that have been modified to take wet plates.
RS: As a cyanotypist I must ask as to whether you feel that the printing these images using the process of cyanotype might be an option because of the resultant monochromatic blue of the image and the sea aspect of your project.
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JS: I have not made many negatives from which to print cyanotypes from, but it will probably please you to know that cyanotype was used in the field back in the day, as a way of proofing glass plates to see how the image looked. I think cyanotype is a very viable option for printing glass plates and actually had students make cyanotypes from their images in a workshop I taught years ago.
RS: Do you foresee continuing on with photographing surfers or are there other sports people whom you might like to photograph?
JS: I am not quite done with this series yet. I would still like to shoot in Hawaii, though I have not figured that out at all. There are also people who are well known in the surf world that I would still love to photograph. As far as other sports go, I don't think so. I think part of the reason that surfers work so well with this process is because I can go to one place, set up and find a huge variety of people available to pose.
RS: Why do you feel that wet plate and many of the other printing processes invented in the 19th Century have made such a dramatic comeback in recent years?
JS: I hear it's called the digital backlash. I began my art making process from scratch and still do. 19th century processes allow you to get your hands dirty and interact with the craft of the art. I think as we move forward in time, it's prudent to look back from where we've come from and to reflect on that. I also think of the digital interaction a little like watching TV. There's this nice cool screen.
RS: Do you ever use a digital camera for your work? If not now, perhaps in the future and what would lead you in that direction?
JS: I just bought a lumix LX3 camera with a viewfinder on top of it, and it felt like my old M3 from 30 years ago. Since the Leica M9 is out of my range, I thought I'd get its poorer offspring. My son has the Canon G5 and it's a great camera, it's just not good for everything. I really don't know if I will ever make a body of work digitally or not. I really enjoy large format photography, whether I shoot film or collodion.
RS: What does the future hold for your work both long and short term?
JS: That's a good question. I had better consult the cards because I work rather intuitively. I am working on a way to try and make wet plate pictures in Hawaii, in case any of your readers are interested in helping. I am also working on a series of tintype portraits of the Miss Shinnecock Teen Pageant contestants. And I started a body of work out in Wendover, Utah in 2008 when I was an artist in residence there at CLUI, and I would very much like to return.
Here are some links to wetplate sites and some and others:
Robert A. Schaefer, Jr. is a founding member of Photoworkshop.com, and has been a photographer for over 30 years. His work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York as well as the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, France. He had a one-person exhibition (November 10, 2007 to January 8, 2008) at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Montgomery, Alabama his home state. He writes about photography for Double Exposure and The Photo Review in Pennsylvania and teaches photography in the Department of Continuing and Professional Studies at New York University. More recently, he began instructing workshops on cyanotype printing at the Center for Alternative Photography in New York City and in September he will be part of a group exhibition on landscapes at the Mishkin Gallery in Baruch College and a one-person exhibition "Virtual Blue" in Jersey City, NJ. His work is represented by the Domeischel Gallery, Ltd. as well as Wm Floyd in New York City and the DeFrog Gallery in Houston,Texas.
