Friend of this site Eric Robinson has been shooting us, and our friends for a couple of years now. Tintypes! Ambrotypes! Pics on metal and glass…way old school, 19th century-style. PDQ, he will be a “Master.” No, not like That! His MFA (Master of Fine Arts) show opens in August, and he is already showing all over like the worst exhibitionist ever. His ongoing Leathermen series is part of a larger archival project called Other Ways of Being. Robinson says of his work: “What I seek with my camera is the difference – visible difference – that allows us to identify or disassociate with groups, cultures or communities.” These are important cross-cultural concerns, and Robinson’s unique camera view points our brains at them. Leathermen has already shown three times nationally (Chicago, San Francisco and Vermont) and is BIG in Indonesia, where it is featured in the glossy mag, PhotoArt Contemporary. Cool. Keep watching, ’cause this fantastic old-school shutter-bug boy is going to be BIG. Well. If we have anything to do with it anyway…more here. Enjoy!
Tag Archives: Eric Robinson
Cool Photographer Eric Robinson gets Hotter by the Minute…
Posted in Collecting, Eric Robinson, Indonesia, Leather, Mendocino County, Photography, San Francisco, Southern Illinois
Tagged Ambrotype, Art, BDSM, California, Culture, Eric Robinson, Gay, Indonesia, Kink, Leather, Photography, Sexy, Tintype
Eric Robinson’s “Leathermen” at QIY: Queer It Yourself – Big Gay Art Show
Eric Robinson’s wet-plate ambrotypes will be showing as part of QIY: Queer It Yourself, which opens Saturday at SOMArts. The exhibit presents alternative, queer, do-it-yourself processes and projects, collaborations, zines, posters, green architecture, activist interventions and recuperations of low-tech media. Robinson took his 19th century kit (big awkard camera, portable darkroom, an array of chemicals, beakers and trays…) to the Dore “Up Your Alley” Fair in 2010, supplementing a series of portraits of Leathermen that he began the previous year. Images from that series will be on exhibit. More on Robinson here, here, here and here.
Robinson at work making wet-plate ambrotypes. These one-of-a-kind photographs on glass were common during the mid 19th century. As it disappears into the digital realm, this work reminds us of the physical, chemical and optical origins of photography. At the same time, generic conventions suggest that “fetish” photography should be slick and polished, suitable for publication in magazines, and “straight” in the photographic sense. These images kick that cliche, their hand-hewn aesthetic underscoring the sense that we are looking into not only the history of photography, but that of Leather. Old Guard all around…QIY is part of the National Queer Arts Festival. This year’s theme is A Sustainable Queer Planet. More on the festival here and more soon. QIY opens Saturday, June 4th with a reception from 1pm until 4pm. SOMArts is located at 934 Brannan at 8th St. in San Francisco. The gallery is tucked under the freeway, just to the east of the Trader Joe’s complex.
Posted in Art and Artists, Beards, Collecting, DIY and Maker Culture, Eric Robinson, Facial hair, Leather, Men, Photography, San Francisco, Southern Illinois, Subcultures
Tagged 19th century, Ambrotype, Art, BDSM, Culture, Dore Alley, Eric Robinson, Gay, Kink, Leather, Leathermen, LGBT, Old Guard, Photography, QIY, Queer Arts Festival, Queer It Yourself, San Francisco, Sexy, SOMA, Somarts, Up Your Alley Fair
Eric Robinson’s Leathermen
P. Raleigh of The Chicago Reader reviewed the exhibit: “Eric is able to present a quality of tenderness and everyday specialness not commonly attributed to such sexual “deviancy” by the mainstream audience. Eric will be a photographer to watch out for in the future…”
Robinson will be returning to California during the summer of 2011. More on him here, here and here. And more soon.
Posted in Eric Robinson, Leather, Photography, San Francisco, Subcultures
Tagged Art, Eric Robinson, Gay, Las Manos Gallery, Leather, Photography, San Francisco, Variations, Wet Plate
Three Generations of Leather: Wet Plate Ambrotype Photo by Eric Robinson
We learn from our elders and teach the young. And sometimes vice-versa. As a community that has collectively lost so many and so much in the last three decades, it is more important than ever that we pass on our best traditions to the generations coming up. It is equally important that we incorporate the fresh energy and ideas of youth into our clubs, institutions, dungeons and families. Make no mistake about it: this is a family photograph. It is a scan of a wet-plate ambrotype, a singular photo on black glass, a 19th century process turned towards 21st century subject matter. Taken by Eric Robinson as part of a project in which he made portraits of Leather families in San Francisco. July, 2010. For more on Eric, click here and here.
Posted in Art and Artists, Eric Robinson, Leather, Photography, San Francisco
Tagged Ambrotype, Eric Robinson, Generations, Leather, Leather Family, Leather Week, Wet Plate
19th c. Technology 21st c. Subject Matter: Artisanal Photographer Eric Robinson to shoot SF Leather
Eric Robinson takes the techniques of photography back to its roots. He works in wet plate collodion processes, producing one of a kind plates on glass. Using a traditional view camera, he cuts an anachronistic figure while exposing the plates. No shutter, he lifts a sliding door on the camera to expose the plate and counts. One, two, three…twenty-nine, thirty seconds or more. A portraitist, his subjects experience a taste of the early sitter’s experience. It is important to stay still. The help of devices may be sought. Portraiture at its best is a collaborative process, an agreement between the photographer and the model. What began in the midwest as a series of portraits by a graduate student of his professor and his partner has become the focus of a cross-country road-trip to document a lifestyle, a subculture, and the extended family of a friend and rogue scholar. On the road somewhere in Nevada as of this posting, Eric should be arriving in San Francisco sometime late Friday, in time for many of the festivities associated with the Dore (Up Your) Alley street fair. Read more about Eric at the HomoGenii site. The photos in the slide show below were taken during a shoot in April, 2010 in Carbondale, Illinois, where the photographer is taking an MFA in Mass Communication and Media Arts at Southern Illinois University. His undergraduate degree is in Chemistry.
Posted in Art and Artists, DIY and Maker Culture, Leather, Photography, San Francisco, Southern Illinois
Tagged Art, Dore Alley, Eric Robinson, Leather, Photography, Wet Plate