In this video I show you guys an exhibition that is a must see when you are in Austria. I am talking about the Steve McCurry exhibition in Grazwww.stevemccurrygraz.com. This is one of the most amazing experiences I had in an exhibition like that. Huge (up to 4x6Meters and 133 of them) portraits of Steve McCurry that are all backlit. These backlit portraits are the only light source in the room. Just some more numbers so you guys get a better idea: 1100m2 portraits in a 2200m2 room! This just looks amazing. Find more details and see some great drone footage from the exhibition in my video.
Mr. McCurry’s work inspired me many years ago and that was the reason why I started with portrait photography. He gave an artist talk in Graz and afterwards he signed books and spent some time with everybody. He is such a nice and friendly human beeing.
As you can imagine, for me it was very cool to see him in person for the first time. And I couldn’t resist to take a selfie with him 🙂
At this point also a big thanks to www.atelierjungwirth.com for bringing such an amazing exhibition and the artist talk to life and letting me use the drone video.
And there are more great news: If somebody of you guys are missing Waterhouse stops, then I am here to help. I created a Waterhouse stop database that can help lots of people http://waterhousestops.mhaustria.com. To make this happen, it would be great if anybody who has existing Waterhouse stops would scan them, measure them and upload all the information. I will bring everything in a usable format and publish it on the website. So if someone is looking for a Waterhousstop, he can go there, print the stops on cardboard and use them. Or if you want to have them 3d printed, just contact me here https://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/kontakt/ Thanks to Christian Klantfor coming up with the idea. Now enjoy the video guys!
Borut’s work is very inspiring, he works with so much passion on his beautiful artworks. His documentations on his Youtube Channel are artworks by themselves. No wonder he was on my list for the inspired project. And most people don’t know, he has Ninja reflexes too – he bought my 3B lens mid air when it was on its way down to the ground. Thanks a lot for that Borut! His blog: https://borutpeterlin.wordpress.com and YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCjjZ-Qc43dF7xHBC92MAuA
I should stop calling these “Short Projects” short projects. It didn’t take that long, but still longer as expected. After I bought it at the Camera Obscura Festival But I still think if you are looking for a affordable large format wet plate camera, you should have a look at the Mentor camera brand. Most of them are build like a tank (Remember, I got another Mentor too, where I did double exposures with: https://youtu.be/y0ccDnXw9xE) and easy to repair. The cool thing of this camera is the curtain shutter and strobe connector. It has also all movements you can imagine, great for architecture, product (or food) photography. For the wet plate process, you want to look for a fast lens, but these are mostly pretty expensive. Thats why projection lenses are a good options, but most of them are triplet designs – but there are others too, like the Leitz Hektor 200mm F 2.5 that covers 13x18cm plates in portrait distance easily and has 4 glass elements instead of the classic triplets. be aware that the depth of field is razor thin on that lens. I have a second one for sale here http://gear.mhaustria.comwith other camera gear I only use very rarely. So I would be happy if this finds someone who uses it again. I just collected to much gear…. In the video, I show you how I repair all the little blemishes of the camera and add two Lenses to it. I even build two lens plateadapters. One to mount lenses from my Century camera to the Mentor and one to mount Linhof Lenses to the Century camera. Check my Thingverse too, I will post some of them there if I am happy with them. . The more I get comfortable with my 3D printer the more I use it, that reflects also in this project. Even some prints take pretty long (my longest one was 16 hours), it saves me lots of time, because I can do different things in-between. And some of the designs would have been much harder to create with traditional wood/metal working. I really like how the camera, lens plates and wet plate holder turned out. This will be used on many during my workshops (for English ones contact me here)in the future And I am also very happy that Tanja of https://www.unikat.pictures/ helped me out to model for me. Thanks a lot! If you liked this kind of projects and want to support my upcoming ones, you ca do that here
Large format photographers who work with antique Petzval lenses know the hassle. You get a pretty new brass lens, but there are no Waterhouse stops included. “Hey I don’t care, I shoot anyways wide open all the time” some might say. With some, I also include me. But then you find yourself on a very sunny day and struggle with doing a very quick exposure, like here https://youtu.be/nStEK3zV5tA?t=438 (and you will end up anyways with an overexposed image, even with the not so light sensitive wet plate process). Oh yes, and there is also the creative point of stopping down your lens – but wait, who really does that if you can have a dreamy, swirly Petzval bokeh, right? 🙂 Just kidding, I would have needed these Waterhouse stop more often than I thought of. That’s why I finally 3D printed them (there is also another option) and did a tutorial for you guys, so you can make them too without having to much trouble. At the end I also decided to make carrying case for them, to have them in a safe place. If you don’t want to make them by yourself, check out http://gear.mhaustria.com– where I will make them for you (Dallmeyer 2B and 3b Waterhouse stops are available right now, but you can contact me here https://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/kontakt/ and we will figure something out for your lens).
This was such a great experience! It was not only great to meet people again at the Camera Obscura Festival, but it was also awesome to meet artists that are interested in an analog workflow. Another great thing is, that this festival is not an exclusive “wet plate event” it is also for people who work with the analog medium in any way. That was so cool, with this option you will experience things you may not have seen before. Like Large Format Cameras build from Legos. It was so nice to meet all of you guys finally in person another big thanks to Stefan, Christian and Denis for organising this great event! If you want to be notified for the next Camera Obscura Festival, register here: http://cof.mhaustria.com
Very proud that one of my infrared images was curated to be shown at the huge exhibition (7km long) in Baden – the La Gacilly: https://festival-lagacilly-baden.photo If you are in Austria and close to Baden, you have to see this exhibition – it is really amazing!
I have already one big tripod with a huge ball head from the large format manufactura Linhof. Linhof also produces their famous large format camera “Linhof Master Technika” which I own also one. So it was quite obvious that I couldn’t resist to repair this tripod I got. Somebody had a bicycle accident with it and therefore it was in a rough shape. But that did not stop me to give a repair a try. If you look how well these tripods are build, it would have been a shame to throw it away. This tripod was made in the 1970s and later. Thats another reason it fits good to my other cameras. Thanks a lot to Foto Koeberl from Graz who send me pictures and a video from a working ball head. Otherwise it would have been much more difficult to reverse engineer the function of it. Check out the video where you can see the whole process of the tripod repair.
Because I know this swan family for two seasons now, I am fully accepted and can come very close to them and their nest. They even trust me so much, that they sleep in front of me. It’s such a wonderful feeling for me to spend time with these guys.That’s also the reason I wanted to shoot large format portraits of them. My first idea was to shoot a collodion wet plate, because the swan mum was most of the time in her nest breeding her eggs. But because of the lockdown back then, I wasn’t allowed to stay outside that long. So I decided to shoot large format film with my Linhof Technika camera and a borrowed 400mm Tele Xenar lens on 4×5 Kodak Readyload film. I have my own fridge for them, because most of them are about 20 years expired and some of them are very unique for me, like the Kodak Ektachrome E100S or the Portrait 160VC. Because I like one of a kind photographs, I shot also Fujifilm FP-100C peel a part film (also expired) to get kind of a wet plate experience 🙂 I documented the whole story, inclusive a bad blooper and the outcome of the breeding in my latest YouTube documentary (I guess after 3,5 months its not just a vlog anymore). If you are interested in prints, check out http://prints.mhaustria.com – there is also one limited hand enlarged (Title “I am beautiful”) print series available.
