I haven’t been shooting much lately. Haven’t been exposing film, processing negatives, or even carrying a camera. But neither have I been totally inactive photographically. I’ve been editing, submitting, and last month I did a workshop. I took a wet-plate collodion workshop with Luís Pavão at Ar.co.  My interest in collodion started last year when I came across Joni Sternbach’s SurfLand, a collection of large format tintype portraits of surfers on the west and east coasts.  I’ll spare you an amateur critique and just say that those images stuck with me in a bad way.  But I couldn’t exactly just buy a kit and get started, and the workshops tend to be expensive and held anywhere except Portugal.  So you can imagine my surprise when last February I was looking for collodion suppliers in Portugal and came across a workshop being given just a few minutes away, by a favorite photographer of mine, for an affordable price, and starting the following week.  Of course it was full, but I showed up to the first class and got in anyways.

The workshop was excellent.  Except for safetly equipment, all necessary gear and supplies were made available to us.  Luís’ approach is more engineer than artist, and he was meticulous in explaining the chemistry and the process and keen at troubleshooting any problems that arose.  The group was good too, a mix of students, teachers, photojournalists, convservationists and generally interested parties.  Everyone was keen on making plates and curious about each other’s’ work.  After a couple sessions we were pouring plates consistently and by the end of the workshop were getting interesting results (two of my faves are above).  It could have rained a little less so we could go outside more.  And more sun would have made for faster, more consistent exposures.  But the plentiful umbrellas did make for interesting props.

What do I like about this process?  It really satisfies several personal interests.  For one, it’s an analog process and there’s nothing I like more than getting in the soup and playing with chemistry, experimenting with development times and seeing that latent image come up in the bath.  Secondly, I’ve been interested in getting into large format and this is a relatively simple and cheap way to do it.  Simple because it’s an easier process that doesn’t require  a proper darkroom (only for loading the plates) and lacks a reversal step.  It’s straight to positive, not unlike a Polaroid.  Lastly, there is an added level of mystique induced by the ether vapors and bitter almond scent of the cyanide.  It’s just really cool!  All these elements combine to make for a very satisfying process.

Since the workshop, I’ve been working on getting myself set up to keep making ambrotypes and try my hand at tintypes.  I’ve got my hands on a old 6.5″x15″ Vageeswari view camera (can anyone say Cinemascope?), managed to modify a standard 8×10 holder for wet plates, got my hands on most of the necessary chemistry, and got an acrylic shop to put together a sensitizing tank.  I can get most supplies at the local lab supply warehouse and don’t have to order paper and chemistry from abroad, and pay the associated taxes and fees.  The logistics of it all can be overwhelming, but it’s not terribly expensive and I’m confident it will be well worth it.

What do I plan on doing with this new skill?  Well, I do have a couple pipe dreams in the works, but more immediately, the crew from the workshop is planning on getting together for Wet Plate Collodion Day in Sintra.  If the weather cooperates, the location holds a lot of promise and I should be ready to make 8×10 plates by then.  Stay tuned.

Hugo Teixeira’s photographs, Chengdu Flamingos and Xi’an Hippopotamus, have been chosen by juror Karen Irvine as the Juror’s Selections for the “Animalia” exhibition. Four photographers–Steven Rood, Sarah Cusimano Miles, Amy Eckert, and Nicole Hatanaka–were chosen as the Honorable Mentions for the exhibition.

Two photos from my China zoo series will be featured in the upcoming show at C4FAP. Big thanks to Karen Irvine and the team at C4FAP. I’ve posted a selection of images on my website here.

Elephant and Crowd, Kunming Zoo, 2009

Women and Peacock, Kunming Zoo, 2009

At some point I picked up a copy of Winogrand’s, The Animals, and resolved to start visiting the Lisbon zoo.  I was about 16 the last time I had been there and I had vague memories of chasing guinea foul and having my thumb nearly pulled off by an enraged monkey.   I wanted to go back there, not so much for the animals, but for the people in who might lurk there.  The ticket price of near €20 quickly put an end to that idea.

Garry Winogrand Couple at Zoo Looking at Each Other, Wolf in Cage, New York, from "The Animals" c.1962, silver gelatin print, 11 x 14 inches

Garry Winogrand, from "The Animals" c.1962, silver gelatin print, 11 x 14 inches

Fast forward a year, I’ve moved to China and a friend of mine and I are trying to figure out what to do with ourselves in Kunming after a failed trip to Garze and an epic series of bus rides into Yunnan through the mountains along the Tibetan border (that story warrants a whole other post).   All I knew about Kunming was what I could find on Wikitravel.  Among the parks listed was the Kunming Zoo which was described as “a pleasant enough place but with a slight air of weariness and decay about it.  Local people also use it as a place for performing exercise or playing cards and mahjong.” A quick bus ride and a cheap ticket later and we were in.   The place was a mix of zoo and amusement park, where employees dressed as Donald Duck strolled passed the wolf cages, where the elephants were clearly disturbed, and where giraffes languised under the log ride.   To say the least, Kunming Zoo was terrible, but the kitsch brought back that old idea of visiting and photographing zoos.   Here was a rapidly urbanizing country (especially out west) where the animals were one of several attractions that got people to visit the park.   This was not the educational/conservational institution that zoos are in other places.  It was freak show.  This is not to say that zoos in China are bad, or that zoos elsewhere are any better.   During my remaining time in China I visited zoos and safari parks in Chengdu, Xi’an, Beijing (the Beijing Zoo was divine) and other places.

Crane and Matching Blouse, Chengdu Zoo, 2009

Children and Fish, Chengdu Zoo, 2009

Polar Bear and Couple, Chengdu Zoo, 2009

So, why visit zoos in China?  I don’t know if I’ve exactly pinpointed the attraction, but a few experiences have stuck with me.  For one, zoos in China are accessible.   First of all because entry is so inexpensive.  Barring the safari parks, ticket prices are generally under US$5.   Not only does this make it possible to frequently visit many zoos, but it also means they will be packed with the most various human fauna.  From young families with eager children, to retirees playing cards–everyone is there.   Hunting people who looked like the animals they were looking at became a favorite sport (leopard woman, giraffe woman, bear man…).  And then there were the juxtapositions that would not happen elsewhere.  The old men hanging their caged birds in the trees next to the aviary, or the men herding goats just beyond the gates of the petting zoo.  It can be surreal.

Seals and Audience, Qinling Safari Park, 2009

Circus Tigers, Qinling Safari Park 2009

Hippopotamus and Windows, Qinling Safari Park, 2009

Visiting zoos became my thing, often to the consternation and confusion of others.   People often discouraged me from going.   My students would invariably warn me that a zoo ‘wasn’t that great,’ and that I wouldn’t enjoy myself.  Western colleagues would recount third-hand accounts of the terrible conditions at an unidentified zoo.  Once, upon being interviewed for the local paper in Baoji, I was asked I liked to do in my free time.  I answered that I liked to visit zoos, and the following question was about what animals I had seen.  I began to list some favorites, but then stopped and said that I didn’t go to the zoo to see animals, I went to the zoo to see people.  The interviewer stared at me blankly.

Lion on Road, Badaling Safari Park, 2009

Elephant and Crowd, Badaling Safari Park, 2009

Man and Camel, Badaling Safari Park, 2009

Maybe the attraction also had something to with life in China being something like living in a zoo.   I’ll illustrate with a short anecdote.  Towards the end of my stay in China, I visited the Xi’an safari park.   It was a rainy day in late August, and zoo was unusually deserted.   I found a small crowd at the elephant house.   One little girl, about 4 or 5, was crying out dà xiàng! dà xiàng! (elephant! elephant!).  She turns and stares at me in disbelief, pointing and slowly exclaiming wài guó rén (foreigner)! I couldn’t help but laugh.  Only in China could a random stranger generate more awe than a full-grown elephant.

Man and Bear, Badaling Bear Garden, 2009

Zebras and Crowd, Beijing Zoo, 2009

Girl and Arapaima, Beijing Aquarium, 2009

My time in China is up, and after nearly a month travelling around, and another month readjusting to life in Portugal, I am finally back on the grid. I arrived back home last month with about a kilo of negatives and slides in tow, and have just begun the triage, digitizing slides with an interesting contraption that deserves its own post. Images are slowly trickling onto flickr.

The last two days in Xi’an were bittersweet. What started off as a flurry of movie watching, mad photographic schemes, and enveloping discussions ended with plodding through rain-logged streets, sober schemes to circumvent bureaucracy, and quiet reflection. Here’s what remains…

Strange how ideas strike you violently sometimes. I’m back in Xi’an and the last couple visits have been very fruitful, not in purely photographic terms, but for ideas. Last time I was here I found myself making sketches for a portrait project and calculating speeds for a gravity powered shutter on a bus headed to the zoo. This time I was struck in a small shop which sold objects which I would typically classify as ‘useless’–odd clocks, fridge magnets, fanciful lamps. But what caught my eye on one table was a couple of toy kaleidoscopes (teleidoscopes actually, according to what I’ve been reading). I held one up to the lens of my LX3 and made the image above. I was hooked. I bought one for about 3 bucks and went on a little spree.

Discussing the idea with Gareth (my enabler of choice) on the way home, we concocted a mad scheme which involved everything from gallery shows to mass produced lens adapters. Within minutes of arriving back at his flat, there was a set of ‘kaleidotypes’ and a Hardcore Kaleidoscope Street Photography Group on flickr. Then came the research and the sketches:

I spent the night dreaming up tube lengths, mirror dimensions, crystal balls and how to assemble a massive kaleidoscope for the purpose of shooting large format film. I’m anxious to get home and start assembling this beast. But for now i’ll keep shooting with the toy version.

After a long hiatus during which they were migrated to a new server, www.hugoteixeira.com and www.fotambulo.com are back.

In the meantime, I’ve been revisiting photos from trips to Garzê Autonomous Tibetan Prefecture in the past year and have put together a new set of photos i’m calling ‘The Days are Much too Bright.’ These photos were taken in Kangding, Litang, Luhuo, and Derge in December of last year. The images have been arranged into a series of seven couplets which compare visual cues or explore popular antonyms–hot and cold, light and dark, sacred and profane, old and new…. Click on the image above to visit the gallery.

The image above was recently selected to be included in the Black and White exhibition at The Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, CO. As part of the submission guidelines, I have been asked to write an artist’s statment. I’ve always been wary of these documents, and found them to be self-serving and little informative. But, submitted for your approval below, is said document. Feedback is appreciated. Here goes:

‘Alfama 2004′ came at the end of nearly two years of exploring my home town with an old TLR and a few boxes of film. I left Portugal as an infant. Having been raised in California, I had long been curious about and inexplicably drawn to Lisbon. Not long after I started to photograph, I started visiting the city regularly. I would spend long days and nights wandering about and photographing what I came across.

The winter of 2004 found me plodding over slick cobble stones in the driving rain, and hiking from miradouro to miradouro on top of Lisbon’s seven hills like a man possessed. This image is of a small football pitch located in the heart of Lisbon’s oldest quarter, Alfama. But what is that vague second exposure shrouding the underlying image? And who are these men playing football? I wonder if these are the same men that I have more recently eaten with in the Indian restaurant in the basement of a nearby shopping mall, or seen playing Peruvian pan flutes on touristed street corners.

I’ve been back to the same neighborhood many times, but I was never again able to find the same football pitch. The shroud of mystery and serendipity that surrounds this image is for me the same mystery and serendipity that surrounds the city and anchors me to it, no matter where in the world I find myself.

28 June 2009. Baoji, China.