Gelatin Relief - First Dance

I spent the last few days locked in the darkroom, and this is one of the resulting images: another Gelatin Relief image from one of last year's weddings. The original photo was taken during Annie and Matt's first dance last spring. I have quite a few new images to share, but chose this first because the veils were really dramatic in this one.

See more of my Gelatin Relief images at www.erinantognoli.com, and if you're interested in acquiring one of these pieces for yourself, please don't hesitate to contact me!

Holgas at Auction!

ETA: Just a quick reminder that this Friday, May 8, is the Pink-a-Palooza Auction. The proceeds benefit Breast Cancer Research, so please stop by and bid on a cool piece of art for a double win!

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Very soon, two of my Holga prints will be auctioned off to benefit Breast Cancer Research and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

Bid on this print here:

Cherry Blossoms (2008)

Pink-a-Palooza Auction
Friday, May 8th
Exhibit will hang from May 1 to May 8 with a reception and silent auction on May 8th from 6 - 8 pm.

And find this print here:

Clouds & Tree

Greenscape Exhibit Auction & GreenLife Festival
Greenlife Festival is coming to Savage Mill in Savage MD the weekend of May 2nd and 3rd.

So if you want to own one of my limited edition hand-printed toned silver gelatin prints and want to help a great cause at the same time, consider placing a bid!

Find more info here:
8600 Foundry St Suite 217A
Savage, MD 20763
http://www.jillhackney.com

the furry kids

If you follow my Twitter (@antognoli), you may have noticed the other day that I was freaked out because a neighbor asked us if we let Maurice run around in the woods near our house. We said no, the dogs aren't allowed to run out there. Well, our neighbor replied that he saw something that looked "Just like him" (pointing toward a shaggy Maurice) out in the woods the last few mornings! Could we have a resident bear? I know bears live in the woods, but wouldn't think that there would be enough of them in the DC suburbs for a bear to survive. But... I've been keeping my eyes peeled ever since.

Which brings me to my next point: there will be no more mistaking of Maurice for a bear for a little while, anyway. He got his annual haircut, and you can see the before and after in the photo above. Frida's in there with him because I realized that I didn't have a photo of the two of them together and it was about time we rectified that.

So behold, my fuzzy children, and revel in their cuteness!

Another Gelatin Relief

Yeah, another Gelatin Relief print. This one is from an engagement session I shot a while back. I am just loving this process for my wedding and portrait images!

See more of my Gelatin Relief images at www.erinantognoli.com, and if you're interested in acquiring one of these pieces for yourself, please don't hesitate to contact me!

More Gelatin Relief

In celebration of the end of Cherry Blossom season, here's another Gelatin Relief image that I made. The negative is older, but the finished piece is brand new!

See more of my Gelatin Relief images at www.erinantognoli.com, and if you're interested in acquiring one of these pieces for yourself, please don't hesitate to contact me!

Gelatin Relief

Some of you may have seen my Facebook or Twitter where I have been talking about this old / new process that I am resurrecting and will begin offering to my wedding and portrait clients (not to mention making some cool personal art!). The process is a gelatin relief, and it consists of taking a traditional darkroom print and tossing it in an acid / corrosive solution that affects the silver gelatin and causes it to separate from the paper. These prints are awesome because you can manipulate them in such a wide variety of ways to make the images look completely different. Each image is one of a kind, and while they can be closely replicated, they cannot be exactly duplicated.

I used this process extensively for my graduate thesis exhibit, and have begun to use it on my wedding and portrait images. The image above is from the most recent darkroom session. I can't wait to start making these for my clients... it's gonna rock!

To see a gallery of these images, go to http://www.erinantognoli.com and click on "gelatin relief". I'll post more on the blog and eventually on Halo's site where they belong since they are made from the documentary images I capture for my clients. I am in the middle of a site redesign for Halo at which point they will be added. Keep your eyes peeled for changes and new additions to the gallery!

Bridal Happy Hour!

If you are planning your wedding, this is a fun, informal event not to be missed (plus you can come and see ME and my albums!).

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PLEASE join us for our monthly Bridal Happy Hour!

Premier Party Rentals Showroom
5715 Industry Lane, #6
Frederick, MD 21704
(301) 685-6379

Tuesday, April 7 from 5 PM to 7 PM


Come mingle and visit with local wedding professionals one on one, get great wedding tips & ideas and even book wedding vendors you still need.

Don't miss out on drawings, discounts and more at this FREE event.

Featuring Vendors Such As:
Premier Party Rentals
Shew-sical Entertainment
Cinful Cuisine
Halo Photographic
Design Diva
to name a few!

Light fare and beverages being served.
Catering by Cinful Cuisine

Hope to see you there!

Contact Premier Party Rentals to RSVP
(or you can contact me and I'll forward you the Evite!)

Liesl + Derrick - Featured!

Recently, the ISPWP put out a call for photos of unique ideas that member photographers had seen at weddings. One of my great couples from a while back, Liesl and Derrick, instantly sprung to mind. See their awesome Day of the Dead cake topper, along with a few other really cool ideas to show your individuality and to help separate you from the rest of the bridal pack here: Four Unique and Creative Wedding Details.

Things to Come

I've been busy working on a brand new offering for both my weddings and portrait clients with Halo Photographic, as well as my more alternative / fine art work under my own name. The results should be interesting, and I'm really excited about this!

Why post photos of photos? This is the first step in my process: Silver gelatin prints made by me in the darkroom. These are beautiful as is, especially on rich fiber base paper that completely blow the regular photo lab paper out of the water. But I have plans for this batch of curly, hand printed images. Stay tuned for more on my photographic endeavors (which involve lots of chemicals)!

5 Myths About Wedding Photography

The ISPWP website has a great article about myths that many couples and families encounter regarding wedding photography, and breaks them down to help those planning a wedding to sort through the fiction and get to the fact.

The one I liked the best, since I have to explain it a LOT to my couples, is this:

MYTH: “It’s better to have two mediocre/inexpensive photographers than one excellent/expensive photographer”

If you’re thinking of hiring multiple photographers for the sole reason of getting lots of images and viewpoints, don’t forget that you shouldn’t skimp on quality. It’s more important for you to focus on the talent and portfolio of the photographer(s) you are considering rather than the number of photographers who will be at your wedding. Some photographers prefer to work alone and create wonderful images, while some studios prefer to work in pairs. Both approaches can be successful. The number of photographers at the wedding doesn’t matter as much as whether the photographer(s) you hire can deliver the types of images you want.

Dennis Drenner of Dennis Drenner Photographs in Baltimore Maryland says: “A lot of brides these days are looking for a second shooter, believing that two photographers are better than one and less likely to miss crucial moments. My response to that is talent and experience (quality) are more important than focusing solely on quantity. When you go in for a double bypass, would you rather have two medical students working on you, or one experienced surgeon?” For the most part, you get what you pay for in wedding photographers. That said, there are cases where two photographers come in handy. In Orthodox Jewish weddings, for example, important events happen in separate male and female sections at exactly the same time. The bottom line is to focus on your photographer’s talent. If he has a nice portfolio, it is in part because he knows where to be and when. That is, after all, half the battle.”

Since I used to be a photojournalist and am used to photographing in high-pressure situations where I do not get a do-over, I typically work alone as the only photographer at a wedding, but do offer collections that include a second photographer if it is needed. As a result, I get asked the question about second shooters an awful lot. People think they will be slighted with only one photographer. My response is to consider the quality of those photographers. Is the second photographer a pro, or simply an assistant with a camera as an afterthought? How long have each of the photographers been photographing weddings? Will you get to see examples of each photographer's specific work? Do they both know how to shoot with their cameras in manual mode (this is HUGE - if a photographer doesn't know his or her tools well enough to do this, they are not professionals)? Do they know how to stay out of each others' way throughout the day so you don't see them in the crossfire?

At bridal shows and for individual consultations, every single image in my booth was photographed by me alone. I have albums of whole weddings from start to finish where I am the only photographer. Prospective clients will not find any gaps in coverage, because I am very thorough. On the rare occasions that I need a second photographer, I make sure my seconds are highly qualified professionals who are quite capable without my constant supervision. After all, I need to be concentrating on my couples and making the best possible images for them, not on the other photographer!

Thank you to ISPWP for tackling these questions, which will undoubtedly make it easier for couples to sort through the myths when they are searching for their perfect wedding photographer.

Holga Weddings Profiled!

The DC Wedding Planning Examiner ran a profile of my Holga Wedding Photography recently, which I thought was pretty cool. Leslie Weekes, wedding coordinator extraordinaire and half of Leslie Manning Events, had asked me a little while back if I would mind being interviewed for this column she will be writing to introduce different ideas to the wedding planning community, and I of course said yes! Leslie was the coordinator for the wedding I photographed last Fall that will be featured as a "Real Wedding" in this year's Fall Issue of The Knot Magazine, so I know she's great to work with.

Read the interview here: Museum Quality Wedding Photography

Ascend

I took this Holga image a month or so ago in DC at the Dupont metro escalator, and then shot the last half of the image later that afternoon at my house... and am just now getting around to posting it!

A time for rest

This is just a quick post to show off my cute husband and dog, and to wish everyone a wonderful weekend!

Exhibit Wave

Right now I am on the tail end of a massive exhibition wave for my Holga show entitled "Fragments & Ashes". The work from this show is so abundant that I was able to split it into two separate exhibits, and thus had exhibits in the DC Metro area as well as in Colorado simultaneously. Because most of you either live in one place or the other (or neither, and didn't get to see any of these shows), I thought I would make a post of a few snapshots I took of each exhibit so everyone could see and compare.

I think all 3 solo shows were arranged very well. In most cases, the gallery does this and I don't see it until the opening. Since all of my work is the same size and I don't have any special hanging instructions, this arrangement is fine with me, and results in a different viewing experience every time.

First up, my show at the Greater Reston Arts Center in Reston, Virginia. This was part of a 3 person show, and we each had distinct areas for our work. My work was on the most amount of walls here compared to the other shows, as opposed to several very long walls. The gallery arranged the work in a way I had never seen before, grouping them in two and three images and leaving space between the next set, even on the same wall. I hadn't thought to do this before at a show, but liked the result. You can see for yourself:







The next show, which was happening at the same time as the GRACE show, was my exhibit at the Curfman Gallery in Fort Collins, Colorado. This was a dual show with artist Leighton McWilliams, who also shoots with a Holga but has a finished product that is more sculptural. The gallery was a great space, and it was pretty much cut in half for each of our work. They played well off of each other though, and everything was meticulously arranged and leveled. They even made custom plexiglass covers for Leighton's work because they were worried that visitors would inadvertently touch the artwork and disturb it. I was treated incredibly well by this gallery, who flew me out in order to give an artist lecture, student work critiques (the gallery is owned by Colorado State University), and of course to attend the opening reception. Some views of the gallery taken just before the opening reception began are below:





And here's a view from my hotel window. For those who live around mountains, you are probably yawning, but for me, this was so incredibly cool to wake up to!



And lastly, my exhibit that is up RIGHT NOW in Frederick, Maryland at the Delaplaine Visual Arts & Education Center. This show is all contained in one room and I'm the only artist in it - the only one of the three exhibits where I'm not sharing space with anyone. Because I work in such a small finished product, it's difficult for me to fill some of the large galleries, but occasionally I find a space like this where it's not only easy for me to fill, but I have to edit out a lot of my work so as not to crowd it. This is the smallest of the 3 shows, with 19 total works being displayed (GRACE had 26 and Curfman had 24, for reference). But still, I think the show looks great in it's little gallery. It's up for another month, so if you are in the area go and check it out in person!





And for now, that's it! I've had a wonderful time thus far, and want to thank each and every person who has come out to the opening receptions or otherwise visited my exhibits, because you helped make this experience so great.

The Running Dog

Despite being almost a year old and pretty much full grown, our new dog Frida has a lot of puppy energy left to burn. Since Andy is a runner, he decided to try taking Frida to run with him. The problem: city streets are not the best places for dogs to run. Their feet are prone to all sorts of injury from rough asphalt, glass shards, heat and cold, and who knows what else. So... we ordered her a running harness and sneakers. Yes, our dog has running gear!

Many people ask us what this gear looks like, so I grabbed my trusty Canon PowerShot SD870 point and shoot camera to help illustrate for you.

The first photo below is our test run. Andy walked Frida around the block to get her used to the gear. She seemed a little hesitant and confused, but seemed to do okay with it.



The next photo is after her first 4 mile run. It's a few hours later and she's still sacked out!



For those of you wondering about the intro photo to this post, there is a handle on the harness just in case she needs to be picked up and lifted over anything (think lots of shattered glass, dangerous ditch, etc). She's almost 50 pounds, so it's a good thing Andy keeps fit! But luckily, I doubt we will have to use that feature very much. We just wanted to test it out to make sure it worked.

And for those who are interested in the gear itself, it is made by Ruffwear, and seems to be very decent, quality gear. Gotta protect the puppy digits!



And there you have it: Frida, the running dog!

Fragments & Ashes - Opening Saturday 3/7

Here is the info for my last solo show on the books, at least for a little while:

The Delaplaine Visual Arts Center - Fragments & Ashes
http://www.delaplaine.org/
March 7 – April 26 (in the New Gallery)

Opening Reception: March 7, 2009, 3 - 5 PM

40 South Carroll Street
Frederick, Maryland 21701

If you can, please stop by and say hello! This is not the last you will be able to see of my work this year, and I will keep you posted on those new shows and events. But it is the last time for a little while that this much of my work will be in any one place (according to my calendar, anyway). So check it out, and let me know what you think!

Colorado Holga

Last month I went to Fort Collins, Colorado for my art opening at the Curfman Gallery, as well as to give an artist lecture / gallery talk and participate in student artwork critiques. However, I did have some free time to myself that I used to wander the city on foot and shoot a roll or two of Holga film. The shot above was taken at a construction site on the edge of Colorado State University's campus, and the photo below was taken outside their auditorium where they have a huge Warhol soup can decorating the lawn.

I had a great time visiting Colorado, and am happy that I was able to take some time to make some images to remember my stay there.

Frida!

I've been very busy this past week. Business work, art work, and family events have all been a factor as usual, but one big furry wrench was thrown into the plans... and what an adorable wrench she is!

World, meet Frida! She is a mystery as far as her breed, maybe a boxer / shepherd / ??? mix. She is a total wigglebutt, loves to give kisses, and as of today loves to jog with Andy. We adopted her from PAW (Partnership for Animal Welfare), the same rescue organization we adopted Maurice from almost exactly 6 years ago. Rescue dogs are the best, and it's so wonderful to give a home to an abandoned, neglected, or abused dog. Maurice has changed so much since coming to live with us - when he was once timid and unsure, he is now cocky and confident and walks very well on a leash (which for an 80 pound dog, that's important!). We're hoping with a little (or a lot!) of work, patience, and love, Frida will make equal strides with adjusting to life in our family.

She's also a bit camera shy, so I'm hoping to get a wider variety of photos of her very soon!



(Edited to add this Shepard Fairey banner to help support pet adoption!)

Valentines Weekend Show

Luck of the Draw: An Art & Music Experience
In the Capitol Riverfront Neighborhood

Friday, February 13 - 6 to 10 pm
Saturday, February 14 - 6 to 10 pm
Sunday, February 15 - 2 to 6 pm

The fun begins at the tent on Half Street, between L and K Streets SouthEAST.
@ Navy Yard metro (on the green line).
Take the Half Street exit and follow instructions from the friendly Clean & Safe folks.

Check here soon for a schedule of music and dance performances!

More music and dance being added, but here’s a sampling:
Scrap Heap, Sejayno, Blue Sausage Infant, Shadow Farm, Doug Stailey and Dan Barbiero, Pilesar, Janel & Anthony.

Some of the visual artists you will be seeing in no particular order:
Sherill Anne Gross, Rebecca Katz, Andrew Wodzianski, David Barr, Chris Bishop, Carolina Mayorga, Alexandra Zealand, Albus Cavus, Tariq Rafiq, Andrea Collins, danny phantOM.

“RED: St. Valentine bled for us”
Curated by Sondra Arkin and Ellyn Weiss:
Sondra Arkin, Ellyn Weiss, Pat Goslee, Joan Belmar, Susan Finsen, Brian Williams, Tracy Lee, Anne Marchand, Tom Drymon, Chuck Baxter, Betsy Damos, Lynn Putney, Tory Cowles, Scott Brooks, Kristina Bilonick, Judy Jashinsky, Veronica Szalus.

Photography exhibit curated by Ten Miles Square:
Erin Antognoli, Amber Baum, James Calder, Chris Chen, Jason Colston, Max Cook, Brett Davis, Angela Kleis, Brian Knight, Marie Kwak, Amber Wiley, Pat Padua, Barry Schmetter, Alexandra Silverthorne, Matt Smith, Paivi Salonen, Steve Strawn, Sanjay Suchak, John Ulaszek, Brandon Wu, Josh Yospyn.

Lots of great restaurants to enjoy nearby at Barracks Row before or after you get your art on.

A collaboration between The Pink Line Project, Artomatic, and Capitol Riverfront BID.

Venues: Velocity Condos, Axiom at Capital Yards, Onyx on First

ISPWP "Real Weddings"

I've been blogging a lot about the ISPWP (International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers) lately. It's a directory of some of the finest photographers around the world, but it's quickly becoming a whole lot more. There are now helpful articles, as well as a new resource called "Real Weddings" that gives you a glimpse into a wide variety of weddings shot by the very photographers who make up the organization. These are great for perusing ideas, or just to see what others are up to on their wedding days.

I was super excited to find out that a couple of mine from last August was featured on the "Real Weddings" segment recently. Kajal and Ali had a traditional Persian wedding, and you can read more about what happened that day here: Kajal + Ali's "Real Wedding".

These "Real Weddings" are so fun, and I can't wait to see what other types of weddings crop up over on the ISPWP site!