Portraits with a Purpose EP01

Welcome to my first ever VLog (Video Blog) .  In January of 2023 myself and 3 other Patchogue NY Long Island artist were awarded a grant from New York State Council on the Arts.  Each of us have a different category and I'm the only photographer. The category I selected, was Folk and Traditional Arts. I decided to make  a series of portraits of other creative an artist in the wet plate collodion process.  This process was invented in 1851 by an Englishman by the name of Frederick Scott Archer.  It was technically the third form of photography ever invented. I will be getting much more into the details of how the process is done in later episodes, but I wanted to speak about the title of my project  Portraits with a Purpose.  It is said that in one day we photograph more photos that were ever taken in the first 150 years of photography. I think this is great that everyone is taking photos but the issue is no one prints anymore. So the most photographed generation will not be remembered in years to come because we have nothing to prove the existence. Our photos only exist as ones and  zeros on a digital device that can crash, die, or get stolen.  With this process, there is no digital files. Everything is analog, no batteries needed.  This process, predates film photography by many years. The images are made with silver on either glass or metal. This is what I like to call the original NFT. They can never be re-created. Yes, I will scan these and digitize them but the original photo is just that an original.. Stay tuned for future episodes on this process.