FARGO — Watching Kary Janousek take a photograph is like stepping back in time. She photographs her subjects (often in vintage clothing) while wearing a Victorian dress herself. From beneath the camera’s curtain, she orders the subject to hold still — for upwards of 12 seconds.

“Exposure times are generally 4-12 seconds in my studio,” said Janousek, who is a wet plate collodion artist based in Fargo.

This summer, Janousek set out to share her analog art with communities throughout North Dakota with the traveling exhibition, “Silver Linings Tintype Tour.” The tour runs through September, held in various locations and historic places like Medora and Fort Abercrombie, featuring photographic displays and live demonstrations.

The wet plate collodion process dates back to the 1850s, a process involving treating film and developing it in about 15 minutes, which means photos taken in the field require a portable darkroom.

If analog photography is an aesthetic, then Janousek expresses her take on it in dramatic, feminine and very human ways. She is the only wet plate photographer in the Fargo-Moorhead area and one of four others in North Dakota.

Trained as a milliner specializing in vintage hats, Jaousek opened an online vintage and antique hat shop in 2012 where she restored and repaired hats from the 1960s to the 1970s. The hat business was her primary occupation until 2020 when she discovered her appreciation for tintype photography and the wet plate process.

“I’ve always loved history and fashion,” she said. “I like feminine, conceptual portraiture that’s rooted in a respect for the past and the emotional journey of the human experience. I also appreciate how fashion from the 1930s to the 1950s really flattered and respected the female form.”

Janousek is prolific and frequently shares her photos on her social media accounts where she details more about her subjects and process.

“I like to start projects that require collaboration and planning, that have a purpose or theme, and that push me past my comfort zone,” she said.

Wet plate photos often come out monochromatic. Not quite black and white, not quite sepia, but something in between. Because they are handmade, Janousek said seeing little scratches and dust fibers on final images is normal and a part of what makes the process so interesting.

“It all adds to an interesting ambiance,” Janousek said during an

interview with South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

“It translates color differently since it only sees the UV spectrum.”

For example, blue turns white, and red and yellow turn black. The result is that different tones and textures come out that modern digital cameras don’t usually capture, or at least, not intentionally. Janousek said the result is that people’s unique features, like high cheekbones and freckles, tend to stand out more.

The process of shooting, developing and producing one image is a lesson in chemistry. Janousek said her process is “slow and deliberate,” and it begins with coating a metal or glass plate with premixed chemicals, then dropping the plate into a silver nitrate bath to make it more reactive to light.

Once the plate is ready, Janousek places it in a light-protecting plate holder by the large-format bellows camera with a sheet to cover the photographer. Then she poses her subject, refines the focus, loads the holder containing the plate inside the camera, replaces the lens cap, pulls the dark slide, removes the lens cap.

And then she takes the picture.

A few other steps are involved at this point, but eventually she gets to the chemistry part.

“Once I see the highlights appear, I stop exposure in water and rinse. The plate is then placed in a fixing solution and the image turns from a negative to a positive,” Janousek said. “This last magical step of transformation can be done outside of the darkroom.”

Janousek often has her subjects dress in period costumes, but she also enjoys highlighting features and characteristics that are decidedly modern. An eyebrow piercing, a tattoo peeking out the shoulder of a dress, or dramatic makeup that plays with the light are all details that make wet plate collodion decidedly postmodern.

“I usually have a storyline behind it that plays into a dramatic human emotion,” she said in her SDPB interview, though too much adornment can have the opposite effect. “Choosing the props and accessories is important.”

The Silver Linings tour has taken Janousek to Bismarck where she photographed the Former Governor’s Mansion State Historic Site and gave live demonstrations on the wet plate technique. Most of her tour stops will involve historic places and landmarks, with an upcoming trip to the Badlands at Medora on July 20 for another traveling exhibit and live demonstrations.

Janousek will be at Ft. Abercrombie on July 27 for the Weekend Living History series that features live reenactments depicting the “Galvanized Yankees,” a unit of Confederate soldiers who were stationed at Fort Abercrombie before being captured and sent east to prison camps.

Janousek is currently the Jasper Hotel’s featured artist alongside Chase Evert where her work is displayed on the eleventh and fourteenth floors. The Jasper is located at 215 N. Broadway in downtown Fargo.

“I’ve been working with the Jasper for two years now and these particular images I made for this display were taken on their rooftop balcony alongside photographer Chase Evert,” Janousek said. “I wanted to play with the idea of old and new, youth and experience, past and present. So. I invited him to take digital versions of the same images that I made on glass using this antique process.”

Janousek is also displaying at The Rourke’s Midwestern exhibit in which the theme is “The Omnipotence: A Century of Surrealism,” displaying now through September at The Rourke Art Museum + Gallery, 514 Main Avenue, Moorhead.

Visit the artist’s

Linktree

for a list of platforms to view her latest work or to request a booking or commission. Janousek is also on Instagram at

@oldschoolcollodion

.

This article is part of a content partnership with The Arts Partnership, a nonprofit organization cultivating the arts in Fargo, Moorhead and West Fargo. For more information, visit

theartspartnership.net.

Southport Memorial Library is pleased to display the photography of Bruce Burnham during the months of July and August. 

Bruce is a Boothbay native whose family roots date back to the 1700s. He’s been looking through the viewfinders of cameras since seventh grade. In high school he lobbied for some darkroom equipment for the art department. His love of developing his own film and prints cemented his love of the photographic arts.

His inspiration, like for many others, came from Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. What he enjoyed most was their nature work and how they manipulated the light and created great patterns from what they saw.

“It’s all about the light,” he said. “Nature inspires me; from birds and landscapes to crashing waves and patterns in nature most people walk by and never see. The workshops I attended held by Freeman Patterson and André Gallant, Tony Sweet, and John Sexton were inspirational.”

This new show features 30 photographs, 14 of which are framed 11” x 14” images for $100. This show includes photos taken during his trip to Hawaii this winter, the Boothbay region and other Maine locations.

Burnham has been a board member of the Boothbay Region Art Foundation for several years. In 2023 he established a new show focused on the art of photography, the invitational Maine Photographer’s Showcase, held in April. During this show, the images of 20 photographers are featured at BRAF. 

Burnham has won many awards for his photography over the years. His work has been displayed in these galleries and venues, among others: Portland Public Library, Bass Park, Atlantic Motorcar, Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library, the First National Bank.

“I want to thank Sandra (Seifert) and everyone at the Southport Memorial Library for their generosity in displaying photographers and artists alike.”

Southport’s library is at 1032 Hendricks Hill Road. Hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday; evening hours on Thursdays from 6-8 p.m.

For more information, call 633-2741 or visit www.southportlibrary.org

Published by Mack, A Forest Fire Between Us catalogues Tee Corinne’s radical and expansive practice as one of the foremost lesbian photographers of her time

July 01, 2024

After two years and 1,460 photographs, they stopped. “Our mindset had already shifted,” they reflect. Left with a vast diary of portraits, they started to form a sequence. The result is a breathless universe of light and shadow that chronicles their return to intimacy. It presents 164 image combinations, but also a fold-out poster of all 730 to show the full process. This is all bound in a reflective silver cover to echo its title, because since the beginning, the duo always referred to themselves as each other’s mirror. “There are things we don’t know about ourselves, but through each other, we can see ourselves more clearly,” they say. “In a mirror, you don’t always see what you want. Good or bad, it gives you a clear image of yourself.”

Some images are dynamic and playful, full of gestures and movement. Others are delicate and obscure, like a secret whispered between lovers. In many photos, it is hard to distinguish between the couple. Both have long black hair, and their faces and body parts are often disguised. This was intentional. They weren’t concerned about making a record of their daily life, the focus was to employ abstraction and performance to express “how reality is not always what you see.”

Name: Max Dillon

Age: 23

Location: Kent

Camera of choice: Someone else’s. It might be the change of perspective I enjoy, but more likely the delusion that there’s always a better camera out there.

Preferred subject: Musicians on a stage. I’ve always loved live music, so taking photos never feels like work.

Favourite time of the day to shoot: Morning.

Most recent photo you took: A funeral flotilla sailing out to sea to scatter the ashes of a fallen seaman.

How you first became interested in photography: I stumbled across a Robert Mapplethorpe photobook in a library whilst I was at school and it turned my brain inside out.

Biggest influence: Wolfgang Tillmans has always been an inspiration with his diversity of output, whilst always keeping politics firmly in the conversation around his work.

Favourite photography series/book: Laia Abril’s On Abortion: And the Repercussions of Lack of Access. The best art is functional, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a more important function than to educate in the way Abril does.

Current project/s: I’ve been experimenting with photographic vorticism for a few years now, using my own DIY vortoscope (an awkward contraption of tape and mirrors over a lens). I’ve always been fascinated by how such a beautiful practice like vorticism could be conceived by artists with ultimately fascist beliefs. I’m hoping to carry this on, just without the dodgy politics.