Ryan Williams's Blogger: People Project

Research on Portraiture

Jody Ake

Here are some photographers i find interesting. My first photographer i am going to look at it Jody Ake. Jody Ake is a professional photographer that lives in new york. He concentrates mainly on portraiture but is known to for his landscapes. Jody Photographs Portraits, still life and landscape using a wet collodion process that was invented in 1851. The method is coated in a glass plate with collodion and exposing the plate while it is still wet. I emailed Jody Ake and asked him what he does to get that affect on his photographs and he replied.

Here is a screen shot of the email i sent him and is reply back to me. I am also thinking on doing work experience with him in the future.

This is the email i sent to Jody Ake.

Hi Jody.

I am a Photography student at blackburn university in England and i really like your work. I cant stop looking at your portraits on the web. they are fantastic. Can i ask you what camera you use to get that effect with your portraits? I was also going to ask if you have ever had students come to you for work experience and if so then can i work along side you next year? It would be a life changing experience because i want to do my best in the photography world and doing work experience with you i feel i could get better and learn from your experience.

Regards

ryan

This is my reply back from Jody Ake.

Hello ryan

Thank you for the nice email. To quickly answer you questions. My images look the way they do for a few reasons. I use a hundred year old 8x10 camera and even older lens. I also work in the historical wet collodion process. all of these factors and more contribute to the final look of the image. I rarely have students or interns. Mostly because my day to day activity is hard to predict. At the moment I am in new york but in the fall i could be moving to oregon. If you find your self in either place let me know.

best

Jody

Here is some of Jody Ake's photography.

I really like the effect he uses to have that border around the image and i don't think you will ever be abel to do this with a digital camera. I love the texture and the detail in the photographs and its a shame they don't make this type of photographic paper anymore.