I took Summer Release Time during the summer of 2012 primarily to go to the Tenth International Symposium on Display Holography, hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But that would only occupy the first half of the summer, so I planned a secondary trip to Condon, Montana, home of (Photography) Workshops in Montana, hosted by Photographers’ Formulary, to take classes in the art of two antique photographic processes, wet plate collodion and daguerreotypes, so that HCD could have bragging rights to a photo history teacher who not only describes and collects these types of photographic incunabula, but also has made them!  And in between these two excursions to institutions of higher education, I took a refresher class in motorcycle riding from Ride Chicago.

Although I am one of the hardest working faculty members at the College, (one doesn’t get to be a Finalist in the Educator of the Year Awards Competition on good looks alone!) I worked insanely hard on my Summer Release Time, which might be construed as vacation to some, but not for me, as it seemed like I had bitten off more than I could chew.

If you want to read the tale of the eastbound trip to the Holography Conference, click here. The following is only about the Daguerreotype Workshop, with more than enough detail, pedagogically and personal.

When I tried to extort funds from the Digital Photography Department Chair, Dirk Fletcher, I came up with the screwball idea of riding my motorcycle to the Daguerreotype workshop to make a 19^th century image of a 21^st century machine.  Now I had to follow through on it.

La machine is a 2000 BMW R1100R that I purchased used in 2004, when I had plenty of disposable income, with only 1837 miles on it. It is the 5^th motorcycle I have owned.

I got it at the behest of a girlfriend who thought it would be fun to tour on it, as she had seen lots of bikes on the road while on a trip to New Zealand.  But as usual that didn’t work out the way I had imagined it.

The bike needed tires and a tune up.  I also got it a windscreen and another piece of luggage for the big ride.  I had two different dealers do the tires and tune up, but I put on the accessories with my son, Edward.  We put the bike in front of my garage, and I set up a DP department Canon 40D on a tripod next to one of my trusty Nikon F’s, loaded with color print film.  This was an experiment I had been wanting to do for years, taking images of the same scene with digital and chemical photography, to have side-by-side comparisons for my classes at HCD.  Samples of the fruits of this labor are in Appendix A of this report.

Besides prepping the bike, the driver needed to be prepared.  I took the SRT class (what an acronym coincidence!  Street Rider Training) from Ride Chicago.

I had taken their beginners’ class a couple of years ago, even though I have been riding for decades.  It never hurts to have someone like a maniacal gym teacher put your through your paces and critique what you are doing wrong and right, especially when your life could depend on it.

They have a classroom in an industrial building on Ravenswood Avenue on the North Side of Chicago, but this class was held in the parking lot of Toyota Park in the Southwest suburb of Bridgeview.  They set up cones, had a variety of exercises for us to do, kept an eye on us, videotaped us, and we put on 40 miles in the parking lot in a 4 hour session!  It helped me overcome my fear of leaning in the curves.

Looking at this operation from an educator’s viewpoint, this school is well prepared with time proven drills and instructors who take their job seriously.  I would heartily recommend to anyone considering buying a motorcycle to take their classes.

Even with the brush up motorcycle training, I still estimated that there was a double-digit probability of me not returning.  I wrote out a sort of last will and testament, probably not legal, sealed it in an envelope, with the names and addresses of who to contact like our attorney if my boys wanted to keep the house, who might buy all the holography crap, etc.  I tore it up upon my return, but there were some reminders of “thou art mortal” during my trip. 

My friend that I stayed with in Colorado on the return trip, George Garklavs, whom I had known since 5^th grade (his father was a Russian Orthodox priest, and he worked out an arrangement with the nuns of my Catholic grade school to let his family come to St. Blase, as George’s older brother Alex was getting beaten up by the public school kids), had a zero mile per hour accident with his bike the weekend I was coming to visit; he was taking an off-road motorcycle class, and his instructor was evidently not as capable as Ride Chicago’s, as the group ended up on a path not suitable for the beginners.  While he was just standing and waiting, the ground under him was too steep and full of gravel, so his BMW adventure bike fell on him!  While not even moving, a couple of hundred dollars worth of parts needed to be ordered, bruises and pride needed to be mended.  Needless to say we did not go joy riding on his day off.

But even worse, when I got off the turnpike to check in to the last motel on the return trip, I saw a bunch of cop cars at the other entrance ramp.  I checked in to the hotel, and went to dinner.  There was still a lot of evidence of police activity.  And it was continuing even after dinner, but I was too tired to walk the extra half-mile to investigate.

But when I was watching the local news in the hotel room before crashing, I found out what all the hubbub was about; a local police officer on his motorcycle was wiped out by a couple of knuckleheads in pickup trucks, one of whom was turning without turn signals and the other changed lanes without signals and ran into the officer!  Could have been me!

The preferred pants for the ride were my Cargo pants.  With their buttoned thigh pockets, I could put my phone, maps, etc. in them and have them handy without having to get off the bike.  I bought some steel-toed work boots for just in case I took a spill.

I allowed myself 4 days to get to Montana, although I had estimated 3 with Google Maps, leaving an extra day early just in case the rain gods looked down upon me with disfavor. 

I departed the Home + Studio of E. Wesly & Sons at 10:00 AM on Wednesday, July 25^th.  It was hard work riding that long!  My hands became numb; my legs were cramped.  I got into the routine of stopping for a stretch after about an hour’s worth of driving to get some feeling back in my hands.  After another hour it was time for another break to get gas, as the 4.5 gallon tank would only last for 140 – 160 miles at the calculated 39 – 40 miles per gallon.  So I would usually end up re-passing vehicles that I had passed before the stops.

I drove until the sun was setting, on the other side of Minneapolis-St. Paul, and checked into a motel.  I took my boots off and laid down on the bed, and the next thing I knew it was 6:00 AM!  Got back on the road at 7:00 and continued that pattern for the next two days.

I got the craziest tan on the trip.  When I would blast off at around 7:00 AM, I would wear my totally butch leather jacket that my kids bought me to keep me warm from the built-in wind chill of driving at 70+ mph.  But the jacket sleeve would blow up to the halfway point of my sleeve, and only the front half of my arm would get sun.

After the early morning break, I would take off the jacket and drive in shirt sleeves.  So the rest of my arm would get tanned.  But my fingers, holding on to the handlebars in a death grip, would be under the throttle grip and not get any tan, as shown in this picture.

Figure 1: Wild hand tan gradient.

I arrived in Condon, Montana, on Saturday afternoon.  This last leg was the scariest of the whole trip, as I was crossing the Continental Divide and was being tailgated by truck drivers who knew all the bends and twists of the road.  It was like the scariest rollercoaster ride ever!  I would crest a ridge and not see if the road ahead was going to lead me straight, or left or right, and to what radius!  So I just tailgated a truck that seemed to know what he was doing.

While stopped for lunch on my last day of the westbound journey, I picked up a copy of the local free weekly and read an interesting article by the governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer.  He was against the Citizens United ruling of the Supreme Court, and wanted his state to be exempt from it, as there were laws on the Montana books that limited campaign contributions, keeping in the spirit of the state.  Unfortunately he was overridden, much to his and my chagrin.  But his article did shed some light onto the character of the state and its people.

Like Bud Wilson, the proprietor of Photographers’ Formulary and Workshops in Montana and Standing Stones Bed and Breakfast.  If there ever were a call for someone to narrate the story of the wet plate collodion photographers of the Wild West like Timothy H. O’Sullivan or Alexander Gardner or Peter Henry Jackson, his voice and accent would be absolutely perfect.

When I introduced myself, Bud thought my name was familiar, even though we had never met.  I reminded him that I had introduced his father to the world of holography, by getting him to advertise in holosphere, The Advocate of Holographic Science, Art and Technology, when I was its technical editor in the mid 1980’s.  (The trademarked name of the magazine is not capitalized.)

What had transpired since then was that my old friend Dr. Jeong had capitalized on this connection and had the Wilsons sell package kits of chemicals for processing holographic films and plates, which TJ was selling through his own family’s business.  (For more details on where those formulas came from, see http://nlutie.com/ewesly/CWC2g.pdf)

He was selling 500 – 800 of these holography kits per year, which accounted for ½ of his business!  Which was quite a surprise, since I didn’t think there were that many consumers of holographic goods in the world!  But this was split between the Formulary selling direct and Integraf selling through their site.

His father had passed away years ago, and they bought this tract of land in Condon, MT, and moved the operation from Missoula.  It is very much a family owned and operated business, with Bud’s wife and daughters making up the work crew.

Their campus had a variety of buildings, all built by Bud; the warehouse, where the backbone of the business is conducted; their home and dorm; plus the cafeteria, darkroom and classroom building.  There was also a horse barn and corral, whose door was where my images of the motorcycle were taken; and an in-law cabin, where Bud’s step-daughter and son lived.  See Appendix B for a photographic tour of his empire.  (Selling the big stones seen in the pictures of the site is another one of his businesses!)

The instructor for the class was Jerry Spagnoli, the premier contemporary daguerreotypist.  (See http://www.jerryspagnoli.com/)  This daguerreotype workshop has been running for a dozen years in a row with the exception of one when Jerry was in Italy.  (The Wet Plate Collodion class I had been enrolled in for the previous week had been cancelled due to not hitting the numbers!)

Some of the other students were heavy hitters in the world of photo-history; Dusan Stulik, originally from the Czech Republic, but now a photo-physicist at the Getty Museum; Sharon Petrillo, from Italy, who restores photographs, and showed some incredible examples of an album she had just rehabbed.

Since the backbone of Bud’s business was in chemical photography, there was not much in the way of a digital infrastructure.  I had to be the IT crew for the presentations by Dusan and Sharon.  I finally succeeded in hooking up my last legs laptop to one of the televisions from a room in the bed and breakfast dorm, and the class saw the results of Dusan’s latest researches. 

He had access to two recently unearthed images by Nicephore Niepce, who is credited with creating the earliest surviving photographs.  One of these images was a photographic copy of a drawing from his partner, Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, inventor of the first practical photographic process, the daguerreotype, which we were making.  Besides looking at the technical aspects of these images, Dusan contended that there really was a friendly collaboration between these two peres[**] of photography.  He graciously let me copy his PowerPoint, and I integrated some of those slides into my HST 118 presentations.

After spending all week “daguerreotyping like lions”[††] and enjoying the excellent cuisine that was part of the dorm package, it was time to climb back on the bike and blast off for home sweet home.  I stopped off to visit one of my oldest friends, the previously mentioned George Garklavs in Loveland Colorado in the middle of the trip, so it took 4 days to return.

More than once I was asked by some loser on a Harley if I knew the way to Sturgis, the home of the big motorcycle get together.  I had no intention to going to such an event, and was not even sure what state it was in.  The reason I use the epitaph loser is not because they were on Harleys, but why would you have to ask directions?  How could you not know how to use Google Maps or MapQuest, or even the old-fashioned way, an actual printed page map!  To retain my ignorance, I haven’t used the above to find out what state the darned orgy is in, although I suspect North or South Dakota!  If I were a real jerk, I could have told them to follow me, as I was heading south, not north, where the action was.

And I did return in one piece, after 3800 miles on my gentleman’s express, with 9 daguerreotypes, (examples of my plates are in Appendix C) although the last 100 miles were the slowest, due to a slight drizzle.  At the last stop for gas, in Morris, Illinois, I paid $1 more per gallon than I had paid anywhere else on the trip, on the roads that were the worst of any I had ridden on anywhere else on the trip.

The boys and cats were glad to see me back, and we went to the Chinese restaurant at the end of my block, and when we got back, I hopped in to bed and got up when I damned well pleased.

Summary:

This Summer Release Time was one to remember.  There were many interesting learning experiences along the road that contributed to making me more valuable to Harrington College of Design.  Was the trip worthwhile? 

It proved that I am one of the leading holographic historians with my PowerPoint presentation that consisted mainly of gleanings from my own archives.  Although it might be debated whether or not holography is a branch of photography[‡‡], it shows that I am practicing historian.

I gathered samples of things for the HST 118 and PHY 201 classes from friends and pictures to add to my presentations from exhibits that I had visited on the trip.  Plus I had daguerreotypes whose provenance I know exactly.  And the only thing that keeps me from making more is in acquiring more of the silver on copper plates.

Would I do something like this again?  Certainly, even on the motorcycle again!  Who wouldn’t want to enjoy the beauty of Workshops in Montana!  But I would have to have better funding.  I had to pay for the travel on both trips, the preparation of the vehicles, and it drained my financial cushion in the bank.  Hopefully the connections I made in the holography and photography worlds might pay off with some financial rewards.

Appendix A: 

Here are some comparison photos of the mighty, mighty, BMW R1100R Gentlemen’s Express naked and fully dressed for the tour.  One of the images was taken on Kodacolor film with the mighty, mighty Nikon F that I have owned since high school.  The other was taken with one of the mighty, mighty, Canon 40D’s from the HCD cage.  Which camera took which image?  (Answer in footnote[§§])

Figure 1: Au naturel from the factory.

Figure 2: Ready for the road!

Appendix B: 

A panorama of the Workshops in Montana Campus.  Some of these pictures were taken from the top of the “dorm” stairs, others from ground level.

Figure 1: On the left, the combination cafeteria, darkrooms, and classroom building.  On the right, a portion of the warehouse where the Formulary conducts business.

Figure 2: The entrance to the warehouse, an in-law house, and the picturesque outhouse.  (Used mainly as a prop.)

Figure 3:  The bike at the foot of the dorm stairs, at the entrance to the wood shop.

Figure 4:  The Formulary Warehouse on the left, the "Dorm" (or Bed and Breakfast) with the woodshop on the first floor in center, and the classroom building.

Figure 5: Classroom building with front porch.

Appendix B: 

Daguerreotypes.  Here are the fruits of my sojourn, for your viewing pleasure.

Figure 1:  First attempt at daguerreotyping the BMW.  Some of the image of the rear tire got wiped off while processing.

Figure 2: Second attempt at daguerreotyping the BMW.  Better framing, perfect exposure and processing.

Figure 3:  Saddle on hand-carved wooden horse.

Figure 4:  Old wooden barrel.

Figure 5:  Tonal rendition study.  Shades of grey on a huge boulder.

Figure 6:  Buckboard seat abstraction.

Figure 7: Self-portrait.  (75 second exposure @ f/2.)

Figure 8:  Antler on a rock.