DAVID ELLINGSEN PHOTOGRAPHY

I’m very pleased to have work at Luz Gallery’s final show of 2011. The first public showing of 2 photographs from the Sea/Life series will be included (along with two of my favorite artists Joni Sternbach and Susan Burnstine, fine art/documentary photographer Quinton Gordon and five others) and the show opens this coming Saturday, November 19th from 12-4pm. If you’re in Victoria on December 1st you can also join in with the Oak Bay Gallery Walk from 5-8pm and drop by the gallery then.

I attended a most energizing workshop over in Victoria at Luz Gallery this past weekend. Moving on from the dry plate tintype process of a couple of months ago, myself and 8 other participants learned about the wet plate collodion process with the accomplished photographer Joni Sternbach of NYC. I’ve been looking for a medium to replace 11 years of working with Polaroid 55PN film (my last collection with that film is almost done!) and looks like this is the one. The way film is going it’s a good thing that I’ll be making my own from now on…ha ha.

The ubiquitous Skull photograph here…and below that a self portrait.

Recently got the processed Kodachrome film back (rough scans below) and the selection process with Luz Gallery is under way. There are a few of us out of the 12 photographers involved with this project that are getting Cibachrome prints done and I can’t wait for that…it’s been ages since I’ve seen one. Come down to the event in March with Quinton and Diana at Luz. I’ll be sure to post the dates as soon as I know.
(If you missed Part 1 on this you can check it out here).

I am very honoured to be part of Luz Gallery’s final exhibition of 2010…a retrospective of the gallery’s artists.
Luz Gallery has made a great impact on the west coast as the first gallery in Victoria showing photography exclusively and has added excellent workshops from world class instructors along with a professional print lab, scanning and a partnership with Tricera…hooray! Diana and Quinton’s passion for photography is inspirational. Make sure to go when you are on Vancouver Island.

This exhibition will open Thursday, December 2nd from 6 to 9pm and will be part of the Oak Bay Gallery Walk . The artists included will be Allan Mandell, Michael Levin, Thomas Bartlett, Dr Ted Grant, Quinton Gordon, Lauren Henkin, Lis Bailly, Dave Aharonian, Susan Huber, David Pollock, George Webber, Donald Weber, Karen Iwachow, Don Denton and yours truly.

I spent last weekend in Victoria at an exciting workshop with Luz Gallery and instructor Dave Aharonian. Through a process of creating digitally enlarged negatives and contact printing them using the platinum/palladium process, it was a welcome return to traditional printing methods with breathtaking results. The fusion of modern and traditional tools in this process seems a logical hybrid for future work…I plan on incorporating this new process into my fine art work flow. Thanks again to Luz and Dave for the great weekend!
Here’s a few snaps from the darkroom…

Dave discusses the chemistry

Mix it up!

Applying the emulsion

Negative sandwich for contact printing

Into the contact printing frame

(looks like I got too excited here to photograph the exposure process in the light box)

Developing...

...and evaluating the print

And away we went printing our own work for the afternoon.

One of mine from the Pacific series...love.

Run by photographer Quinton Gordon and curator Diana Millar, Luz is a new photography gallery and workshop space in Victoria, BC.

With an extensive list of workshops and an impressive line up of exhibitions they are off and running and have already been recognized with one of the “10 to Watch” awards. I will be heading over there to give a lecture or two this summer and have also been kindly included in their line up of artists whom they will be representing. I’m very excited to be partnered with them…their professionalism and dedication to photography is inspiring.