Ken Merfeld
		Website about the artist: www.merfeldcollodion.com
			Statement by the artist
			I have been an aficionado of the B&W darkroom and have shot portraits for many years. I wanted to explore a new method of expression, a different way into the heart of my subjects. The world is moving very quickly into the future of electronic imaging. I choose to slow down and work in the original photographic technique of hand applying chemistry to glass, longer exposures, and period piece lenses. There is an elegant simplicity and a purity to 19th. Century photography and the Wet-Plate Collodion process is illusive, magical, and has a life of chemical interpretation all its own. It is the most intimate of photographic experiences, requiring a psychological exchange of intellect and emotions rendering handcrafted heart and soul portraits. It becomes a revelation of the heart rather than a performance by an individual, while the plate’s subtle and provocative aura draws the viewer in. "I enjoy the challenge of a single defining exposure revealing a new level of intimacy, truth and depth to my world of portraiture" An acute awareness of the ever-increasing demands on peoples' public and private lives in today's digital, virtual, global world, led Ken Merfeld to immerse himself in an obsolete 19th century process used by some of photography's master artists. Merfeld's haunting wet collodion portraits are revelations of the heart. Polar opposites of the digitized futurism that has become easy viewing in our new visual language, the artist lets the process, the sitter and the photographer create a defining moment of intimacy and truth. Ken Merfeld