Fred Fraser

Behind the Masque

Fred — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:38:23 +0000

I realize looking through the few posts I have here up to this date that you may get the impression I don’t shoot digitally anymore … Digital photography carries on as usual though, both for my usual corporate/commercial clients and the odd editorial. I worked with Liz a couple months ago on a project of her devising that was recently published in See 7. The best telling of the story for you is done by Liz herself on the See 7 blog, click here for that read. The story itself can be viewed here (although I am not sure how relevant that link will be as it ages, so click here to see the story hosted from my own server).

Our friend James, a previous portrait victim, came by and shot some video and put together a sweet little bts video:

Liz’s masks are so beautiful I could not resist using them for my own purposes. I have begun shooting a short series of photos – using the collodion process (surprise!) – that gravitate towards classical figurative images. Below is a teaser. I will trot out the rest of the photos once I have finished shooting them and then you can buy them!

Alternative Boudoir

Fred — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 05:56:33 +0000

Making

Fred — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 22:31:50 +0000

Shereen

Fred — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 23:11:33 +0000

Fire Truck

Fred — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 22:59:10 +0000

Mr. Calvin Soo and his 1989 Toyota firetruck.

Yes, it’s backwards. All lenses project an image that’s upside and backwards. Modern cameras use mirrors to correct the image vertically and laterally so this is a quirk that takes some people by surprise. The ambrotype images I make are positive images created in the camera and there is no facility for correcting the image laterally after the fact. So, every image you see in my collection is backwards!

Revisit

Fred — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 18:03:09 +0000

Liz and I photographed bits and pieces of wardrobe Liz has made over the years in a wet plate fashion series. It typically takes me 90 minutes to prep for a wet plate shoot, and each photo takes about 25 minutes to set up lighting, find a pose, make, expose and develop the plate to the point where it can be judged a success or failure; this shoot was a looooong shoot. I don’t always nail it on the first exposure and as I recall I exposed 10 plates to get 6 final images. This appeared in an online fashion photography aggregator call Syn Magazine without preamble or embellishment so …

Click here to see all.

You may not speak

Fred — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 22:25:07 +0000

Aadie

J J

Fred — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:56:38 +0000

James and Joanna, art director, stylist/designer. Vampires.

Tusznios

Fred — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:28:38 +0000

Natalie and Nicole.

Imaginaceous Syncronicity

Fred — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 02:42:53 +0000

I had envisioned this shot a long time ago. I had intended to shoot it, or something like it with another woman with a large taxidermy collection about a year ago … but life kept getting in the way with other demands and inconveniences.

I have photographed Kristy a couple times before – most recently for Wedluxe. She also has a taxidermy collection, a rather bizarre one as it happens, so when Liz described a shot she wanted to do that meshed so closely with a shot that I had envisioned (a decade+ of working together … we rub off on each other I think; imaginaceous syncronicity) I thought of Kristy straight off.

These photos will be available for sale in the near future – both prints and the original glass plates – as a part of a growing collection of “art” images I am accumulating.

Liz has a post on her blog with some bts on making the antler harness.

PS: Imaginaceous Syncronicity … I may no longer be a teenager, but I can still invent words.