Alex Boyd with his portable camera, Downpatrick Head, Ireland

For several years now I’ve been working as a photographer specialising in historic processes such as wet-plate collodion. This is one of the earliest ways of making images and was first invented in 1851 by Frederick Scott Archer.

Den Bruiste Sea Stack, County Mayo, Ireland

This process has the slight downfall that it requires you take your studio with you, with enough chemicals, supplies, water and materials to make images wherever you are working.

Alex’s portable studio

It currently takes a car to move my studio from one location to another, with little room left once the camera and my darkbox are packed alongside me. If I’m working inside, in a dedicated studio space, or an improvised one such as the vaults of Stirling Castle, then making images is fairly straightforward, as long as there is an ample supply of light and water, and the chemicals such as silver nitrate are behaving themselves.

Inside the darkbox, portrait on tintype

Louise Boyd

Working outside in the landscape however brings a whole new set of challenges, difficulties and frustrations, however it is probably where I most enjoy working with this process. Setting up my portable darkroom, in effect a large wooden box in which I can work in the field, I need to contend with high winds, rain, snow and intense heat and in the case of a residency on the Atlantic coast of Ireland I undertook earlier this year, all of these within a matter of hours. Difficult locations also mean that you have to drag all the gear to where you want to make images, sometimes a back-breaking and laborious task.

Alex’s studio, WW2 bunker, Downpatrick Head, County Mayo, Ireland

Scottish artist Hugh Loney

To date I’ve worked across Ireland, Scotland and England with my darkbox, everywhere from Rannoch Moor up in the Highlands, to the ruins of several Second World War clifftop bunkers in County Mayo in Ireland. Working in this way allows me to completely immerse myself in each location, due to the slow and methodical approach to image making, with each plate taking 15 minutes from the moment I pour collodion on the glass, to the final development using potassium cyanide.

Darkbox, camera and chemicals in studio

I’ve been asked many times why I persevere with collodion photography, especially given the difficulties in producing images using chemicals and the need to bring so much equipment with me. The answer is a straightforward one – it perfectly complements the way I make images. I found that with film and digital my approach was slowing down and becoming more contemplative, and that I was investing more time into each individual shot. This of course does change with the subject, however for landscapes I would say that my pace at the moment is fairly glacial.

Cashlanicrobin Rock, County Mayo, Ireland

The approach also produces distinct images. Aside from collodion’s unique aesthetic, each image is a moment in time recorded on glass, not just the scene before me, but every flaw and imperfection which goes into making that image. This can range from chemicals producing chaotic and unexpected results, to blades of grass from the side of Loch N-achlaise or midges from Glen Etive trapped forever in the collodion like amber. The corner of every image also contains my fingerprint from where I held it during its creation, a marker which signifies that I was there.

The Old Tree Graveyard, Ballycastle, Ireland

Alex Boyd is currently the RSA Artist in Residence at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig in Skye.

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‘Where I Make’ invites readers behind the scenes of artists from many disciplines to share photographs and a little insight about where they create their masterpieces. See more from the series here.

Although there are many collaborators and friends of the Center, Cat and Zack have formed the heart of the team in most locations. The Center is currently at work on the “Spice Mix Super Computer” for AND’s Mobile Republic.

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On our adventures traversing the globe, we have not stayed anywhere for more than 4 months in the past 2 years. With such a nomadic existence, ‘where we make’ is always changing.

On a flight: a good place to think, read and sketch, and catch up with stuff offline.

We have developed a variety of strategies for concentration and focus. For example, Zack works best early in the morning at a coffee shop with headphones on listening to drone music, while Cat works best in the peace of the late night when it seems the world has gone to sleep there are no other distractions (except for the occasional snore from Zack).

Just in the last week, we have worked at Bold Street cafe in Liverpool, on a plane, a train, in an airbnb room in Manhattan, and right now at a house with a large kitchen garden in Connecticut, charging our computers along the way and catching wireless connections where we can. These strategies have worked to greater or lesser effect in all of our temporary accommodations over the last year:

CANADA (Vancouver)
INDIA (Bangalore, the Koorgi Region)
IRELAND (Dublin)
NETHERLANDS (Amsterdam, Leiden, Rotterdam)
NORWAY (Oslo, Stavanger, Bergen)
SINGAPORE
SWEDEN (Stockholm, Uppsala)
UK (Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool, London, Milton Keynes)
USA (Portland, New York City, Connecticut)

Our amsterdam apartment and office, while working on Pray for beans Project. The closer the deadline, the bigger the mess!

Every place we visit is an opportunity to connect unexpected dots. Moving around so much means we can exchange ideas, artifacts and recipes between seemingly unconnected places and people. I am sure we wouldn’t be making a Spice Mix Super-Computer in the UK if we hadn’t spent time in Bangalore being drawn into spice-rich karnatakan cuisine. Our Smog Tasting project in Bangalore was prompted by a quote in Harold McGee’s “On Food & Cooking” which seems like a particularly American approach to food. And so on.

Smog Tasting took us to the rooftops of Bangalore for a week of in-situ cooking.

The AND festival’s Mobile Republic is a microcosm of our last year. So far we have visited Manchester, Liverpool and London to work on the project, and we will be taking the caravan on the road to 4 locations in northern England. Taking on a project like this in an unfamiliar place is always a challenge because the simple tasks, such as sourcing various materials, become research efforts in their own right. The upside is that we generally see the places we visit from an unusual perspective. There can’t be many visitors to Liverpool who have strolled along Edge Lane to visit the B&Q.

The sign with no sign on edge lane by b&q, Liverpool, source: google maps

We do not have a permanent home or studio. We have attempted to consolidate our travel kit to the absolute essentials, but it is hard to bring an entire kitchen with us!

Here is an example of our other work space in the Netherlands: the kitchen of a restaurant that we took over for one evening. (Photo Credit: Lucas Evers)

Following food stories around the globe has been amazing, but we are looking forward to finding a landing spot and opening up the Center for Genomic Gastronomy as a non-nomadic entity. Maybe 2013?

All images are courtesy and © The Center of Genomic Gastronomy

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