Portrety

Glass Faces-movie

Glass Faces movie- backstage

Portrety 4

Portrety 3

Glass Faces

Glass Faces

The eyes and faces all turned themselves towards me, and guiding myself by them, as by a magical thread, I stepped into the room

Sylvia Plath

Glass Faces present unique, enchanting, climatic and hypnotising portraits. Bewitching with natural beauty and somewhat unreal, mysterious, silent and oozing various emotions.  Faces of friends and people we have just met. Ambrotypes – positive images created on a sheet of glass using the 19th century wet collodion process - are the vital element of the project.

The ambrotype is inimitable. You may try to reproduce it, but a piece created on black glass remains unique.

Ambrotype - Ambrotos means immortal...

Joanna Borowiec

The Glass Faces project presents over a dozen unique wet collodion plate images - ambrotypes.  It is one of the earliest positive photographic processes used to capture the rare climate and the depth of the gaze of portrayed people.

The portrait is the reflection of the human soul, of things we hide within. 

The ambrotype is a positive image created on a sheet of glass using the 19th century wet collodion process. It is now gaining huge popularity as an alternative to the modern digital photography. Its biggest difference is the one-of-its-kind and retouch-free nature of every image and its ambience. It is practically impossible to replicate an identical image or even a collodion print.  Each and every plate requires individual coating, sensitisation and exposure and needs to be developed within the span of several minutes.  

The collodion process is a photographic technique in which the glass plate coated in the collodion emulsion with photosensitive agent (silver iodide) is exposed in the camera to create a negative image which is later used to make paper prints. The process was popular from the 1850s until the early 1880s. 

Portraits are made on black lacobel glass in 18x24 format. The exhibition presents a handful of original copies and more than a dozen B2 and B1 prints. It marks a retreat to the analogue photography, fine processes and dark room technology to promote this unique early photographic technique.  Presentation of large format prints highlights the graphic edge of images and unique, irreproducible effects of photographs made by wet collodion process versus the original.

Old toys

The toys from my childhood 

Flowers