In October Neil A. Miller led a street photography workshop titled Capturing the Unexpected. Five photographers worked over three weeks to create and curate their images for presentation in the workshop.
Photographers in the workshop
Beverly Klemme
Catherine Laurent
Gina Santi
Holly Metz
Monica McLean
Neil A. Miller
An American photographer, Neil A. Miller, captures the many fleeting aspects of the world around us. Neil’s first photographic work on the street was in Cleveland, Ohio during the early 1960’s. It was a challenge to go from pictorial/portrait type photography to candid street photography. Working with a Rolleiflex 3.5f and a Leica M2 the results created a passion in him that has continued to this day.
In the 1970’s he spent time with Garry Winogrand and W. Eugene Smith while assisting at the Ansel Adams and Friends of Photography Workshops. His background includes time as a US Navy Photographer, a 15 year teaching career along with a 39 year career as a news photographer for Channel 10 in Phoenix. Since retiring, Neil continues his devotion to the photographic arts and most specifically to photographing on the street.
We got experimental in the lab this weekend during our Mordançage workshop with Jace Becker! This free-form, intuitive process process physically lifts the darkest parts of a silver gelatin emulsion, forming delicate veils. The veils can be manipulated or removed, allowing for endless creative opportunities. Our participants played around with a variety of techniques, achieving one-of-a-kind results with each print.
Jace demonstrated processing silver gelatin prints in mordançage solution, water rinsing baths, and developer. The mordançage chemistry bleaches the prints as it’s lifting the emulsion, requiring the print to be re-developed to bring back the image.
After the print has been washed, the lifted gelatin emulsion can be manipulated to add visual interest, motion, or abstract shapes to the image. We used cotton balls, hypodermic needles filled with water, compressed air, and hairdryers to place the veils exactly where we wanted them to go.
This print is slowly being re-developed – the tan parts of the print were originally black!
Cesar Laure had some interesting results with this half-mordançaged photogram – the altered portion of the print is on the right.
Beautiful print by Susan Berger
Prints by Suzanne Fallender displaying a range of different colors achieved by placing developing prints out in the sunlight.
We can’t wait to see what our students make with this process!