"be motionless, i beg you" lewis carroll: hiavatha's photographing (1887)
having your portrait made at les délices du chaos will remind of posing for a 19th century fairground photographer*: an artisan handling large wooden cameras and almost forgotten photographic techniques.
might such ways of working* and the resulting prints (with their multifarious flaws) appeal to some who appreciate roberto donetta, daido moriyama or julia margaret cameron?
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techniques include polaroids and other direct positives, silver gelatine prints, cyanotypes, and the occasional c-print. print formats are mostly between carte de visite, postcard (4×5 inch) and 8×10 inch (around din a4).
for bookings or to find out where the nomadic portrait studio will set up next: call or write an email.
* footnotes
some sitters rather seem to think of an ethnographer shoving uneasy savages in front of his camera. others mentioned orpheus and his lyre in nick cave’s ‘the lyre of orpheus’. are again others reminded of the tales in martina clavadetscher’s book vor aller augen (before all eyes)?
the shadow autoportrait (saignon, 2017) above is made with a paper negative process, a modern variety of henry talbot’s calotype and a pun on his haystack of around 1844.
even the darkroom, of westonian frugality, is portable and can be set up almost anywhere. if necessary as a tent.
thanks to silvia for persisting, serge picard for rigorous tutoring and john berger for saying in few words how it sometimes is to make portraits.