A New Look! And a snowy day in Houston!

 

Snow in Houston!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Ours was awesome.  Lots of family, ate too much, and watched football.  The norm for us.

Well, I haven't posted in a couple weeks, but I've been busy taking pictures and working on a new look!  I've designed a new logo, come up with a color scheme for my site that I like, and my web designer, Brian Burk, has modified my portfolios site to fit this new design.  It is a work in progress, but I like where it is going.  I hope y'all like it too.  I'll be making some modifications over the coming months, and will be adding some new content to my blog/website.  But, please, give me y'all's feedback, and let me know if you like or don't like something.  My goal is to make my site and blog something that you all can really enjoy looking at, and that is full of good information for my clients, potential clients, and interested photographers!  Send me an email (chrisbailey@cbaileyphotography.com) and let me know what you think of my new look, and if there is anything you'd like to see on my site.

In other news, it is snowing like crazy in Houston!  I mean, all out blizzard...well, at least for us Houstonians!  It is very beautiful...and cold...Regan and I will be having a fire tonight, and decorating our first REAL Christmas Tree together.

I'll be posting later today and early next week with photos that I've taken in the past couple weeks, and with some photos and details on the albums that I offer.  Until then, enjoy the snow everyone!

 
 

My wonderful assistant, Georgia, is wondering why the heck we aren't out, playing in the snow.  I've assured her we will get out in the snow today.  If Houston snow weren't more like rain, we'd be out there already!

Yellowstone Academy

Well, I promised to post soon about what I am doing at Yellowstone Academy, so I thought I'd go ahead and fill y'all in on the gist of what I am doing.

In the spring of 2008, during my final semester at the University of Texas, I decided I wanted to start a photo program with a school that I used to volunteer with while I was in high school.  The name of the school is Yellowstone Academy, and it is a private, Christian school (pre-K-6th...but will be adding through 8th grades) for underprivileged children of Houston.  It is an awesome place, with an incredible and extremely dedicated staff.  Please check out Yellowstone's website here for more information about their school and students.

Sometime before my spring semester in 2008, I had read an article in National Geographic about a photographer who had taught children in Israel how to take photos.  It was very powerful, watching these young children essentially learn a new language, a new way to speak and tell their story.  Some of the photos were very beautiful, and I remember thinking, how cool would it be for the children at Yellowstone to be able to tell their stories!  How empowering.  How beautiful.  

Therefore, for my final semester's project at UT, my professor graciously allowed me to travel to Houston to spend time with and teach the 4th grade class at Yellowstone about photography.  I would go down to Houston every other week, and meet with the 4th graders in the after school program (at the time, the 4th graders were the oldest children).  We learned about the basics of photograph, composition, light, and tried to discuss photography as a language.  We used Olympus point and shoot cameras.

The following spring 2009, I continued the project, and I had mostly new kids in my class.  Again, we used the Olympus point and shoot cameras, and I did my best to teach them about photography.  I continued to give the children in my class different assignments every couple weeks, and we would meet weekly on Wednesdays.  However, I had trouble getting my students to focus on a project--they just wanted to snap pictures on the playground, and of their friends.  They took some wonderful photos during the semester, and like the year before, I put together a show for them at their school, with their framed and signed work.

However, this year I decided I would like for my students to begin thinking more about the photos that they are taking.  The children are in Middle School now, 6th grade!  And I believe they are certainly capable of learning how to use a true, manual 35mm film SLR (I also learned in middle school).  Therefore, I spent the beginning of the fall buying up used Pentax K1000s off of eBay for the students to learn with this year.  We had our first class in the middle of October, and are again meeting weekly on Wednesdays!

So wish me luck!  I'm trying to find fun ways to teach these kids the concepts of lighting, exposure, and the functions of their new cameras.  I think last week I bored them to tears, teaching about shutter speed.  This week we are just going to try and have fun.  I'm going to make a camera out of their science lab room!  A camera obscura...I'll take some photos of the day and post them online soon.

Jessica's Senior Portraits

I got a call to take some Senior Portraits this past week, and here are some of my favorites from the shoot.  The weather has just been awesome!  Jessica lucked out--everyone else sweated through their senior photos during the summer, and she got cool, beautiful weather!

Tintypes!

Tintype that I took in Spring of 2009 of one of my photography students.  Photo by Cara Debusk (my high school photo teacher!)

Almost two weeks ago I spent the afternoon at Episcopal High School (my old high school, and where I spent some time teaching photo last spring!).  I did a little workshop for some of the advanced photo classes, and for the after school photo club (wish they had had this while I was there!).  Anyhow, we spent the afternoon learning about tintypes, and I did a demo on how the process works.

For those that aren't familiar with "tintypes," tintype photography was invented in the 1850s.  Also called "ferrotypes" these images are photographed onto sheet metal, and use a chemical called collodion as the base material.  The silver nitrate (what makes the plate sensitive to light) adheres to the collodion, and makes a useable plate (a plate is the sheet metal that the photo will be exposed on).  The tintype process is a "wet plate process," meaning that one must prepare a plate, expose it, and develop it before the plate dries.  Therefore, a tintype photographer must have access to a darkroom, wherever he is making photographs.  This means that if you are a traveling tintype photographer, you must have a portable darkroom!

The tintype process is very labor intensive.  You must mix all of your own chemistry (and take the correct precautions when doing so, as some of the chemicals are very toxic), prepare each plate individually, expose and develop each plate on the spot, then varnish the plates after they have dried.  The process also requires a lot of gear--good thing I kept my old camp trunk!  Also, make sure you're not wearing your "Sunday best" while making tintypes--the silver nitrate will leave stains on anything it drips on (hints the old "Tito's" shirt and jeans).

Tintypes also have a very slow film speed.  Exposures are usually several seconds, and often reach 15-20 seconds (or more!).  So tell your subjects to hold very still...

The result, however, is exquisite!  And totally unique.  There is no way to reproduce a tintype.  Unlike paper prints, which use film (or digital negatives) to reproduce multiple prints in the darkroom or with a printer, tintypes are totally unique in that you cannot print from them.  When you make a tintype, that is the only one of its kind that will ever exist in the same form.  Pretty cool thought, huh?  A photo that is as unique as you are (well maybe not quite as unique as you, but certainly one of a kind).

The craft of making a tintype is a beautiful process, one that I enjoy and am continually learning about each time I break out the chemistry and start pouring plates.  It is very "hands on," and the finished product is more of an object than a photograph.  Picking up a tintype, holding it and touching it (by the edges and corners if not protected) is such a unique way to experience a photograph--different from our traditional, gallery experience, where photographs are often behind glass, within frames, and separate from our literal grasps.

Here are some photographs from my class with EHS.  I will also be posting more about the tintype process here on my blog.  I'll be going into more detail about some of the gear, the actual process, and what I have learned, or am learning about tintype photography.  I am still very much a beginner in this process.  Mark Osterman and Robb Kendrick have graciously helped me when I have had questions.  Please check out their work.  Mark is the go to guy for any antique photo process, and Robb completed a beautiful series of work on Cowboys, and continues to work in this process.

Setting up a photo outside with a large format, 4X5 camera.  Since tintypes are only sensitive to UV light, we photograph outside.  Photo by Cara Debusk

 
Preparing a plate in the darkroom--pouring the collodion onto a plate.  Photo by Cara Debusk

Fixing a plate after it has been exposed and developed.  This is done in a diluted bath of Potassium Cyanite, which is why we do this step outside.  Photo by Cara Debusk

 Students preparing a photo.  Photo by Cara Debusk

Looking a little unsure about all of this, and this mad scientist guy that showed up to teach photo class today...

Photo by Cara Debusk

Preparing a flame to varnish a plate.  Once the varnish is poured over the plate, you must move it over the flame so that all of the alcohol evaporates from the varnish.  Photo by Cara Debusk

One of the finished tintypes (left tintype) from the day.  Since there is no way to accurately measure the available light with a meter to determine the correct exposure, one must simply rely on guess and check.  This tintype was over exposed, but we didn't have time to make another one with a correct exposure.  Photo by Cara Debusk

Amanda and Ryan Engagement Portraits

Yesterday afternoon we had wonderful weather in Houston, and I was scheduled to photo
graph Amanda and Ryan, whose wedding date is coming up in January.  Amanda and I actually went to the same high school, and were in a couple of the same photo classes.  Anyhow, we had a very nice time in the cool weather, and light was beautiful.  Their dog, Cajun, was a lot of fun, and added a little twist to the shoot. Wish this was the norm for Houston weather!

Enjoy!  I'll be posting soon with some photos from a "tintype lesson" I gave to Episcopal High School's photo classes, and with some information about what I am doing with Yellowstone Academy and their 6th graders.