Courtesy of Kevin J. Mellis
In an image-saturated world it can be hard for a photographer to stand out. Kevin J. Mellis whose portraits are on exhibition at Artpoint Gallery until December 20 shoots single photos directly onto glass using a rare 150-year-old technique.
The wet-plate collodion process is long and labour-intensive involving plenty of chemicals and a single image of the subject. With an additional step Mellis can create a reproducible negative image but generally he produces a single positive print on black glass. It’s no easy task for the sitter either — the subjects who are selected randomly have to remain perfectly still for between 10 to 60 seconds of exposure with the help of a head brace. The results are eerie unpolished and authentic.
“I don’t want people to just look at the image I want people to be present to the image and go into the image and experience the image on a very different level than what we see in a magazine every day” says Mellis. “My own interpretation of people of humanity of relationships and connections have all influenced how I create my images and how I intend for viewers to see my work.”
Mellis is actually relatively new to photography. His primary vocation for the past 20 years has been as a social worker and he’s worked in the emergency department of the Foothills Hospital for the last eight years. It was an experience there in 2010 — the unfortunate death of a child — that prompted him to re-examine his life and start studying photography.
After spending a year learning the ins and outs of photography at the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts though he found that thousands of frames and layers of Photoshop left him cold. “I needed more than just a digital picture” he says. “There was a disconnect from this process [of photography] there was something that wasn’t humanistic enough for me.”
Having learned the wet-plate technique through a workshop in Denver in November 2011 Mellis began capturing portraits — without giving up his social work either. “My work in the hospital clearly influences my art practice and my art practice clearly influences how I practise as a social worker” he says. For example he explains printing directly onto glass represents the fragilities of life that he witnesses in the hospital.
He’s also particularly interested in people’s eyes. “I’ve seen so many eyes in the emergency department and I have seen emotional death in eyes where they’re just flat where they have no emotion” he says. “…So when I take my pictures I try to capture and immortalize one’s emotions through the eyes whether they’re closed or open or looking direct or indirect.”
In addition to the human subjects Faces Among Us… includes some large black-and-white prints of natural landscapes contrasting with the intensity of the portraits. “Some people might interpret the wet plate as fairly heavy emotionally some people find looking at someone’s eyes a bit uncomfortable but when they turn they get the softness of the black-and-white” says Mellis.
Despite being early in his photography career (he is currently completing a master of fine arts at the University of Calgary) Mellis’ work has already attracted international attention. Three of his prints were exhibited at PhotoWorld 2014 an international photography festival based in New York City where he won the Student Fine Art Category. (All three prints are in the Artpoint show.)
Although the Artpoint exhibition ends on Saturday Mellis will be taking portraits as part of an Exposure Photography Festival fundraiser on January 23 2015 providing a chance for anyone interested to see the wet-plate process or to purchase a photo themselves.
Faces Among Us… is on exhibition until December 20 at Artpoint Gallery.
