Gallery: This Amazing Camera Prints Images Onto Handblown Glass
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Artist Emma Howell brings a fresh perspective to old vistas by exposing her photographs on handblown glass vessels.
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Producing these photos requires something much bigger than a Pentax, so Howell created a custom camera from scratch to capture them.
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"Most people are not able to experience a place that is unaffected by the human presence," says Howell.
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"I'm creating a way for others to experience this in a way that’s more than looking at a flat print of the cliché beach we all see and know," says Howell.
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Instead of film or an SD card, Howell records her images on custom plates and employs the wet plate collodion process—a set of techniques and chemical formulations that predate the Civil War.
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Her workflow involves hiking to remote areas with a miniature chemistry lab and darkroom on her back, mixing up a batch of photosensitive chemicals, coating the glass, exposing the shot with a customized camera, and then developing the image—all within the space of 15 minutes.
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"When I bring the glass into the landscape and make my exposures, I choose the composition based on the glass vessels," says Howell.
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Ripples in the glass are meant to echo waves in photos of the coastline and dramatic folds at the edges mimic the craggy depths of mountain ranges exposed on its surface.
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She studied how old large format cameras were constructed by cabinet makers and used her art school skills to fabricate her own.
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She sawed a barrel in half to serve as the camera's body and hacked together a mount that allowed her to attach a traditional lens to the irregular body.
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"I aim to create, in a sense, a glass window to offer the viewer an experience that brings them into the landscape within the photographs," says Howell.
