gabriel biderman ~ fine art photography

Last Sunday, I attended the first sold out show to be held at B&H’s 60+ seat Event’s Space. Over 80 people showed up at 10:30am to learn more about Lensless, Alternative and Adaptive Photographic Processes! In other words, a lot of people showed up to a NON-digital photographic event!

This was a preview of the f295 Symposium that will be taking place in Pittsburgh from May 28th – June 1st 2008. If you have any interest in Pinhole or Toy cameras or thought it would be cool to learn any of the alternative photographic processes from albumen to ziatype, well this event is not to be missed!

I attended last year’s symposium, and it was an amazing 4 days of exhibitions, lectures and round-table discussions, workshops, and networking focused on the in-depth exploration of alternative photographic processes. I met a lot of talented artists, was inspired by the speakers, and attended a wonderful workshop where I made my own Daguerreotype!

This year, right off the bat, the Holga Tintype Workshop has my alternative creative juices flowing! It was really great to see so many people show up on Sunday and for those of you who constantly ask when film will die? My answer is N E V E R!

The speakers this Sunday included Laura Blacklow, Martha Casanave, Jill Enfield, Jessica Ferguson, Scott McMahon, Erin Malone, Tom Persinger, Kelly Anderson-Staley, and Jerry Spagnoli. Photos of the event can be found here.

The featured speakers in Pittsburgh will be:
Martha Casanave, Jill Enfield, Jessica Ferguson, Robert Hirsch, Jerry Spagnoli, Keith Taylor, and Ilan Wolff.
There are 40 more slots available for the early bird registration discount of $120 for the Symposium.

The Workshops Registration will start around 2/16 and will be available only to attendees of the symposium.
The featured Workshops are:

• Albumen-Platinum Printing
• An Artistic Approach to Digital Negatives
• Bookmaking for Artists and Photographers
• Calotype Paper Negatives (Dry Process)
• Chrysotype and Cyanotype ‘Rex’ Workshop
• Daguerreotype
• Developed-Out Salt-Printing
• Planning, Organizing, and Staging a Successful Exhibition
• Introduction to Wet Plate Collodion
• Wet Plate Collodion Field Trip

I hope to see you there!

Underneath the Water Tower, Portland Oregon.

I’ve always had a fascination with Water Towers. They disrupt the cookie cutter layout of suburbia and are ubiquitous to the New York City skyline.

Water Towers became the way to transport water to the communities and buildings all over the world first starting in the 1300′s but becoming more feasable in the 1800′s. They replaced the often bacteria infected town wells as a new, clean way to pump and transport water to the masses.

The Chicago Water Tower is one of the most popular Water Towers in the United States, this amazing piece of architecture withstood the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The tower itself is now obsolete but the pumping station is still operational and the tower also serves as a major tourist stop.

During the 1800′s NYC required that all buildings higher than 6 stories be equipped with a rooftop water towers. Since 2006, the neighborhood of Tribeca requires water towers on all buildings, regardless if they are being used or not! Two family owned companies in NYC, who were originally barrel makers, have been outfitting the NYC skyline with wooden water towers since those early contracts in the 1800′s. No sealant is used to hold the water in. Tank walls are held together with cables and leak through every gap when first filled. However, as the wood swells, the gaps close and become impermeable.

Most water towers are off limits to the public, however the water tower atop Volunteer Park in Seattle is open to the public and offers amazing 360 degree views of the city. No fence was around this water tower in Portland, Oregon, and I was excited to shoot underneath the behemoth. The image was shot with a new pinhole camera purchase, the 8banners superwide medium format camera. I first saw this camera at the f/295 pinhole symposium and knew in my heart that I had to have one. I am a superwide kinda guy and as you can see that pinhole is pretty darn sharp.

Well, have a cup of water and enjoy the pic!

We made it! One year ago on June 24th at 6pm I married the beautiful Nancy Bartlett under this arbor. Nancy and I revisited our wedding site Clermont about a month ago, and I took this Pinhole shot of a section of the arbor in which our vows were spoken. I know it is typical to say, “I can’t believe it’s been a year!” But I can’t, and when I think back to that amazing day and how it all came together with the sun finally breaking through and shining down upon all us all in the cutting garden at Clermont…it makes me glow.

A year later, Nancy and I are finishing up our honeymoon up in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. Honeymoon Part II is kinda the continuation of our original honeymoon which was a 7000 mile drive across the US of A visiting 14 Baseball Stadiums, family, friends, and lots of Road Food. Originally we wanted to end our honeymoon in Seattle, visiting our good friends Angus, Carrie, Jonny, and Maria along the way. Well, time got the most of us and we only got as far as San Francisco, but we vowed to ourselves that we would hit Portland (Angus and Carrie) and Seattle (Jonny, Maria, and the Safeco Field) in 2007. In the end it all worked out for the best, as the powers that be scheduled the Boston Red Sox (our favorite team) to play Seattle on June 25th 2007, the day after our 1 year anniversary. A plane ticket purchase and Jonny biking down to Safeco Field to secure the tickets to game guaranteed our anniversary would be a success!
So here we are in the Northwest, still in love and still watching baseball!
Go Sox!

So, I’m on a diet.

Last Friday a few of my friends came to me and told me that it was time, I had to lose some weight. I think that takes some guts and respect to say that to a friend, whatever the issue is… so I thank you.

Later that day Nancy and I started our 8 hour drive down to Grafton, West Virginia for a Memorial Day family reunion. We devised a gabeplan for food and exercise and Nancy asked “What if we gave you a goal or prize to work towards?” We all know how difficult it can be to stay committed to these sort of things, especially if you don’t see any immediate results. When Nancy said, “What about a Leica camera?” I knew there was a reason I married her, but had she known that the inevitable hankering for a leica had bit me? Earlier that week I had been on Leica’s a-la-carte-website where you can customize your very own leica and had printed out a couple dreams…

So the bike is tuned up and I’m riding 15 miles round trip to work, up and over the Brooklyn Bridge, a totally top of the world feeling.

Don’t worry I’m still eating, but just not as much and a lot of carrott sticks!

Since I started a week ago, I’ve lost 12lbs so you might be seeing a smaller version of me with a leica camera sooner than you think!