Northern Plains Native Americans: A Modern Wet Plate Perspective (VOLUME 3) presents a selection from Balkowitsch's photographic project which aims to capture 1000 wet plate portraits of Native Americans over four volumes. Following in the footsteps of Edward S. Curtis and Orlando Scott Goff, Balkowitsch pays homage to his home state and its Native American heritage and culture. His photographs highlight the dignity of his subjects, depicting them not as archetypes, but individuals of contemporary identities with historical legacies. In our image-saturated world informed by automation and digital speed, Northern Plains Native Americans offers a fresh perspective on the photographic imagination.
In stark contrast to the digital process, wet plate photography-a practice that dates back to nineteenth-century Victorian origins -- involves preparing a glass plate with collodion and silver nitrate solution for an extended exposure in the camera. In Balkowitsch's natural light studio, the Nostalgic Glass Wet Plate Studio in Bismarck, North Dakota, a proper exposure takes around 10 seconds, about 600 times longer than an iPhone camera. Approaching the historically embedded technique from a contemporary perspective, Balkowitsch's process transforms the limitations of the medium -- its labor and time sensitive nature -- into opportunities for creative explorations. The resulting ambrotypes attest to the unique, unparalleled beauty of this archaic photographic form existing at the intersection of art and science, both past and present.
"Each image contains not only the moment it was taken, but the time in which it was taken. People are willing to hold their breath, focus their eyes and still their thoughts for the 10 seconds necessary to make an exposure. Each exposure contains a piece of eternity. In essence, people willingly give me a little part of their lives to be photographed in collodion," says Balkowitsch."
*Each book is a limited edition and will be signed as well as numbered by Shane Balkowitsch
