Shane Balkowitsch is a wet plate photographer from Bismarck North Dakota. Prior to getting into wet plate photography, Shane had never owned a camera outside of his cell phone. Shane is currently on a mission to capture 1000 wet plates of northern plains native Americans.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• What is wet plate photography

• How Shane got started with wet plate photography

• How wet plate photography works

• Where Shane struggled most when learning wet plate photography

• Technical challenges of exposing wet plate photographs

• Why Shane stuck with Wet Plate Photography, knowing that digital photography is much quicker and eaiser to produce an image.

Resources:

• Wet Plate Photographer, Shane Balkowitsch’s website

• Shanes Instagram

• Balkowitsch documentary on Amazon

Did you enjoy this episode? Check out more recent interviews with other great guests!

Full Episode Transcription:

Disclaimer: The transcript was transcribed electronically by Temi.com and may contain errors that do not reflect accurately what the speaker said. Because of this, please do not quote this automated transcript.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:00:00 Prior to shooting wet plate photography. You've said that you've never owned a digital camera, but you've had many creative endeavors I guess, or pursuits. So how were you introduced to wet plate photography and why do you think it stuck with,

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:00:15 With you right away? I get asked that question a lot. I feel that there was something visual that I needed. I've always felt like I was a visual kind of person. So I, I did, I never want a camera. Obviously I had a camera on my phone and stuff like that, but I never, I never had an interest in photography whatsoever. And I saw an image online. I asked what it was, the photographer told me what it was and I just fell down this rabbit hole with this very archaic you know, process that dates back to, you know, 1850s.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:00:53 So that was obviously like the cliff notes version right there. When you say that you had really never been interested in photography, I find that there's some sort of disconnect between between that and kind of where you're at today spending so much time, so deep into the wet plate process. So I kind of want to know, is it more of the technical side of wet plate that gets you excited? Is it, what is it about specifically wet plate that gets you excited more so than maybe digital photography ever did?

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:01:27 Well, I think a wet plate isn't anything about convenience. So you know, the technical side, I did not know what it was going to take to make a wet plate. I didn't, I guess at first I didn't realize that I would have had to have a dark room of some sort. I mean, that's how naive I was. I didn't know what an F stop was and knew nothing about lenses. I knew nothing about cameras, obviously. I didn't know anything about large format cameras. I, I had no, no point of reference. So for me, I'm chasing this and learning from the ground up, just stumbling my way through it. It just seemed kind of natural. It didn't seem like an inconvenience, like if I would've known digital photography or even film photography you know, you would say, Oh gosh, this is so much more difficult or something like that.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:02:12 I never knew these, these more recent processes. And so the difficulty was never really there. I, it, the difficulty was trying to figure out how to give an image. Like that's all I cared about. There was, there was no, I, I can be honest with you. I had no creative ideas at all. It was just about getting an image. I wanted to be able to point this lens and camera at something and be able to transfer it into pure silver on glass. And it was that, that that goal or that end game that just, I just one step in front of the next one step in front of the next. So I, I, it's not about convenience for me. It's not about difficulty for me. I still have difficulties in the process. You know, people ask me, when do I think I'm going to master this process? And I, I always say, you know, for the last eight years, I've had the same answer 30 years from now. So it gives you an idea of you know, you'd never really become you never become perfect at it. You just continue to continue to chase it.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:03:18 I find it crazy that after looking at obviously the process of wet plate looking at some of your photos, some people have the audacity to ask you, when are you going to master this as if, as if your photos are just technically crazy because whatever their thinking is I dunno, I think so far removed from probably what goes into wet plate. So that's just a, that's just my, my little thing there to say that I think that your work is great, I guess. So I didn't,

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:03:46 I appreciate that. Yeah. And maybe that answer also, Raymond goes back to people have called me a master, like they they've called me. You know, they they've said that he's a master of wet plate in interviews and online and stuff. And I always go, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, hold on a moment. Hold on a moment. Let's let's not go there quite yet. Give me another 30 years. So I, maybe my answer was more to that notion of someone calling me a master. Cause I just don't I think I, I know in my heart, I know there's a lot more to learn and that I know that I can approve much more. I know it's going to be smaller baby steps and these larger leaps that I took when I first started taking my portraits. But online, if you look on my website, you can go back to, there's a little link that shows every year, my images.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:04:31 So you can go back at 2012 and you can, I keep them out there for this specific reason. And usually why I keep them up there is because when I'm I have wet plate brothers or sisters, and there's only about, I should tell your listeners, there's probably only about a thousand of us in the world that do this process, but when I have someone coming on and I'm always trying to you know, assist other people, trying if they, if they want to take the song on, it will always say, well, look at your images versus my images, that kind of thing. And I said, hold on a moment, click on this link and I'll send them that link. And then they get to see, because all they know about me is my recent work. And then I show them my, my first work my, my very, very amateur work.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:05:09 And then it gives them a little bit of like, Whoa, look, good, Shane. You know, this is how far Shane's come in eight years. If I want to do this, I can do the same thing and understand all these people that usually take it on the wet plate process are photographers, professional photographers. You know, not many people just start from this is their only, their only process. So they have the tools and the knowledge of light and the use of light and composition and all these things. These are things I didn't have any of that. I knew nothing of, any of that.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:05:39 So really excited to dive specifically into that idea right there. But I think maybe, maybe I got a little bit ahead of myself maybe before we get any further, can you explain to me as if I've never heard of the thing before? Could you explain what wet plate photography is? Yes, course.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:05:58 In about 1848 the, the Frederick Scott Archer from Europe, he decided that he was going to figure out this new way of making photographs so that the Garrett type and to give your listeners a little bit of history of the big era type was the previous process about a decade before what blade process they were polishing the Garrett types or polishing pieces of copper and using mercury and heating it up and they're getting heavy metal poisoning. And there's some very beautiful images came out of the big air type era. But Archer wanted to figure out a, a better way or a more convenient way, a safer way to make images. And so what he did is he figured out that there was it's called wet plate collodion photography. So collodion is the, is the key term there.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:06:45 So Clodius had a medical application. If you were a doctor or on the planes or something like that, and someone cut their arm or something or someone got a sword cut or something like that as a doctor, you would have a bottle of ether with you. This is in the Victorian era, understanding this is 1840s, 1850s. You'd have a bottle of ether with you to put people to sleep. If you had to be extracted to their cutoff, an arm or whatever, the reason it would be that that was your, that was your way of making people unconscious. You would take your bottle. We, through you go to your gun. Smith had [inaudible], which is cellulose, which is the white Whiting that they used to stuff down. The barrels had guns that cellulose in a bottle of ether, and you would make collodion, I would then go to your arm where you have this slash or this wound.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:07:31 And I pour the mixture onto your wound. And I would seal it shut at stopping the bleeding. So it was like this liquid band, it's the Victorian era and Frederick scars about this kind of like glue substance and what he did, the, the, the coin flipped and how he used applied it to photography. He figured out he knew that there was an affinity between bromide salts and silver molecules, and he knew that he could get silver out of silver nitrate, baths. So he it's called Salta clothing and he added a certain percentage of bromide into the collodion. I pour the clubs Salta collodion onto, and you asked for the brain. So I'm giving you a long explanation, keep going if I'm going too far. So I got my bow, my bottle assaulted Claudia, and I pour it onto the plate. I then well wet plate for a reason, if the plate drives, and this is one of those inconveniences, again, we were talking about earlier, the thing, you know, why people probably got away from this because if the plate dries, you lose the image.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:08:28 So you can't go and have a sandwich. You can't go, you know, once you pour that plate, you're making an image right there and you have to have come available to you right there. So I poured the clothing onto the, the glass plate. I immersed that plate into a bath of 10% silver nitrate, the silver molecules jump out of the silver nitrate, the attached to the bromide. That's in the Claudia and I make a photosensitive plate. I then take that photo sets of the plate. So then my camera I bring it back and before dries, I have to develop it. I gotta rinse it. I gotta fix it. I got to rinse it. And then it goes on the drying rack. So there's this this process that you just have to follow in, and it has to be done in a relatively short amount of time.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:09:09 Last week I went down to dignity in South Dakota and cache for the native American statute down there. And it was, it was 90 degrees out and there was a wind and, you know, these plates and his plate of ether and stuff, I was just struggling cause I was in bright daylight and it was just very difficult to in that kind of environment to you know, to make a wet plate. So and then once you're dry, so the light, once it's dry, the image is made out of pure silver. And what's beautiful about Pearl pure silver. There's two things about this process that I think your listeners need to know about. First is the, the longevity or the archive ability of a wet plate. An image made out of silver will be here at thousand years from now on broken.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:09:48 So you can't say that for pigments and dyes and inks and any other kind of thing we create with, they all fail over time. We know that we can look at a painting that's 300 years old and we can say, Oh, look, it it's failing. A silver image does not fail. So we have the archive ability of the web plate. And then we have the resolution of the white plate and the resolution of a wet plate is at the molecular level. So I'm writing in molecules are silver. Rather than, you know, how many other than pixels Jumani molecules of silver, I have to stack on top of each other to visualize what the human eye,

Raymond Hatfield: 00:10:20 I couldn't imagine

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:10:22 2 billion billion. Okay. So you can take my wet plate, any one of my dried plates at the end of this process, and you can take it to any university and ask for their highest resolution microscope, and you can put my wet plate under that microscope and you can't get to the pixel of grain that makes up that image.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:10:41 Wow, that's incredible.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:10:43 These are, you need an electron microscope. I've seen images on electronic microscope to get down to the pixels of grain that make up an image. So these are the most high resolution images man has ever made. And we abandoned this process in the mid 1880s for something simpler and faster and cheaper and more convenient

Raymond Hatfield: 00:11:00 And more convenient. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:11:03 Why is that a good enough reason? No freezer.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:11:08 That's funny. You know, it's not a good enough reason I think for you, but I wonder how far we would advance in photography if we would not have abandoned it. You know what I mean? Like I'm not trying to it's just an interesting, I guess, thought process there, which is obviously like there's things that are far superior and this even happens today. There are things that come out that are far superior, but for some reason, either convenience or nowadays maybe marketing, we choose the lesser of the option because it's, it's, it's convenient. So I'm glad that you decided to stick with this and continue on because you are, you were kind enough to send me your book here, which I have looked through and I've thought to myself, looking at some of the, I wish that I could see a higher resolution version of some of these images because even printed is this what's what size of a book is this? It's very large.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:12:04 I like 11 by 14 or something like that. I'm not sure the exact size, but I understand that I'm taking a plate that has infinite resolution or not. You can use the word infinite, but it's very, very high resolution. Okay. And I'm putting it on a scanner bed and I'm trying to shove it into a 1200 DPI. Hey, you know, and it doesn't want to go there. One of the struggles that wet plate photography I have always had in the modern day is to replicate their work. And we just struggle. I mean, you you'll see, we just, we don't, we have no way. Cause if you came in and these plates on behind me here as I'm talking, if I, you know, if you were in here and I could show him that couldn't hand you an analog photograph on glass, on a heavy piece of black glass that ha is made out of pure silver you're just, and anyone who walks in the first thing that they say, if they know my work, they say, Oh gosh, w w what we see online is not this, this is, this is totally different.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:12:59 And I always say, yeah, it's not my work. And I explained that to the college students, when they come out from the university and the junior college they'll see prints, or, you know, maybe my darkroom or whatever, my work. And I'll, I'll say that's not my work. And they, and they get confused. And I said, well, that's not my work cause that's on paper and that's a scan and that's, that's not my work. I do my work exists on black glass and made out of pure silver. If it's not black classmate of your silver, it's just, it's a very bad, and I'll, I'm the first one to be honest about it. It's very bad representation of my work. And that's just the truth, but that's not, that's not unique to me is what I played on a sets unique to all wet plate artists. It's just the struggle, everyone.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:13:37 And I've had a bunch of friends that do books, what playbooks of their work. And it's always, always, they're just, we're just not happy with it. We're just not happy with it because in the real world, the real work. And then we're trying to use some kind of technology to represent these plates. And it just it's a false representation, but that's, but we have to share it. I mean, the only reason, you know, people know about my work and stuff, and the only way I could share it is online and stuff. So I got to do a scan of it. Yeah. The scan sucks. It's a reality.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:14:08 It's funny. I feel like I kind of feel the opposite of time shooting digital is that, you know, we have such high resolution screens and sometimes it doesn't feel like enough. Like you can never get enough sharpness, but then when you go to print the photo, you realize, Oh, there's more of a re there's more resolution on my computer screen than there is in this print. And suddenly this print looks fantastic. So it's almost, it's almost the exact opposite there, which is really something interesting to to think about, to think about

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:14:37 Intuitive. Yeah.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:14:39 Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm interested to learn a little bit more in your learning process as how you got into wet plate, because I'm assuming that there's really not as instructional YouTube

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:14:52 Videos or books on how to shoot wet plate probably still in circulation. So tell me about how you learned, how to shoot wet plate photography. Well, one once the decision and I, I think I made that decision in the first day, I saw my first wet plate online. And again, I didn't see an original wet plate. It's not like I ran into an ambrotype, which is what these are called. If they're on glass and they're in type. So your listeners, I should also give them that little tidbit of information. It's a tin type. If it's shot on a tin or metal, it's an Amber type. If it's shot on glass, ambrotype means eternal impression. But it it's the same process when people think they're different and they are the same process. So I decided right away. And so I got online obviously, as we all would.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:15:33 That's how I, I started doing some research and I, and I found a gentleman in upstate New York called John coffer who wrote a manual on how to make what plates and, and him and I are friends to this day. I've never met him. He sends me some of his work and sends me these letters. He doesn't even, he's in a, in a house with one light bulb. He doesn't have a computer, he doesn't have a telephone. And he writes these he writes his manual. It's called the John cartridge doers guide. So I, I sent him, I think, $75 yo box, you know, a couple of weeks later, this manual, this handwritten high end type manual into my house. And I just sat there with a highlighter and just 33, trying to understand, okay, this is what I gotta do first.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:16:16 Okay. That's step one. Oh, that that's step two. Oh, I gotta do that before that. And, but I didn't, I had no point of reference, like, I didn't even know, you know, even about developing like film or anything, so I didn't know. Okay. So you shoot the film and then you got to develop it. I didn't under, you know, I didn't, I didn't understand any of that. So it was John coffers manual. And then you know, you can find people on YouTube and stuff like that. And then it was on Facebook. And then I found some groups out there and I have my own group now of friends of Eric Scott, Archer on Facebook. So if anyone's interested going that group and we're just a bunch of guys and ladies trying to you to practice what he he had started so many years ago, Speaker 3: 00:16:59 So it was

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:17:01 A bunch of just a bunch of learning. And then when you get started, and once you start that first day on October four, 2012, when I made my attempt at my first wet plate that's when you have all the questions, you know what I mean? Like that's, when you can read all you want. And I read, it was about 45 days. I had my camera made for me by star camera company and my five by seven wood camera with the bellows. I had to find a lens. So I, I mean, you could read all you want, but when you start practicing, that's when that's when the real questions. And then, then you have people that are kind enough. Andres Ray in Germany is my, my only, only wet plate mentor. I've never met him as well, but I consider him my mentor and, you know, I kick over and I, you know, so this is what happened or I'm getting this w what do I do? And he's always been, he's always been there for me. So you just find someone else. And that's why I feel like I'm starting a friends of Frederick Scott Archer, and helping other people and showing them my previous images and stuff like that. Always trying to help someone if they're interested. I I'm, I'm here to help them because people help me. So,

Raymond Hatfield: 00:18:05 So you got, you got this handwritten manual in the mail, is that right? This guy you said John Cox wrote it's a handwritten manual.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:18:15 Yeah. He ain't either. I would recommend if your listeners want to get this manual, he has the handwritten one, which is in his, which is in cursive, which I've seen pages from it which is kind of difficult. And he'll admit that it's kind of difficult to follow, but then someone went and took his handwritten manual and typed it out with a typewriter. And I think goodness, and that way, so ABA, John kafir, I want to see back in the, I want to see in the nineties, he had traveled across the United States or some States with oxen and wagon. What plagues? Oh, he's, he's just, he's brilliant. And he's got a yearly people will pay homage to him and go to his camp, Tim type it's called every year he has. And I think it's going on right now, or it did last weekend and people from all over the United States and all over the little fly in and go to his little farm and camp out in his field and learn the process and, and, and, and, and, and spend time. And I'm gonna use this word properly with the master.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:19:20 Yeah. He's the master. That's good to know. I can't wait until you release your handwritten manuscript. A VAT would be the day. That's how you'll know when you, when you become the master. So as you said, though, you go from reading all this knowledge and I'm right there with you. I can read all day feel like I learned something. And then the second that I pick it up, I feel like I have no idea what's going on. So you read everything that you could, you said 45 days, you went to go take that first wet plate. Walk me through some of the things that you immediately realized that you were struggling with.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:19:52 Well, people will come in and I always, I always demonstrate. So if you came in as a complete stranger, if you came in as a sitter and I was gonna take your portrait on any given day and I've made about 3000, I can tell you exactly what we need to walk away. My next plate on Friday will be 3,598 on my made 3,597 wet plates in the last, nearly eight years. I always demonstrate, so they'll, everyone comes into the dark room. I show him the poor. I think that was the difficult part is that you've got this liquid and you're pouring it onto a glass plate. And you're trying to keep that on the plate. And you're trying, you have to cover a coated evenly that you gotta capture back in the bottle, cause you don't want to lose all your chemicals. So I, I think that hands on and then there's a lot of it where you can't like, I couldn't tell you Raymond, okay.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:20:42 You develop for 18 seconds. Like, you know what I mean? Like if I could tell you that as a newcomer, that would be brilliant, right? I'd say you just pour on the developer and you go 18 seconds and you got what you got in your all. That's always going to work. That's not how it works. So you, so it was a lot of stumbling around is how long, okay, how long is my exposure going to be? How fast is my lens? How long am I going to develop for these things? And there's that marriage between the exposure time and the development time. You always want to get that exposure. Right. Which I didn't understand that at first. Right. I was just taking the lens cap off. Okay. This time I'll count to four or this time I'll count to eight. What do I, and then you look at it and like, well, that didn't work.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:21:20 Okay. So eight isn't right. To always six, right. Or seven or eight, or is 12, right? Or is 30. Right. how, how long? So I usually in my natural light studio have a ten second exposure. So you're you know, my iPhone, I think my aperture is open for about one 60th of a second. I think I read somewhere. So it's about 600 times longer to take a wet plate in the process than it is with a digital camera. So McMahon, tick thought that these aren't snapshots per se, you know what the quotes, these are ten second movies of my sitters. So there's heartbeats. And I've said this before, there's heartbeats in the plate, there's a couple shallow breasts or maybe a blink. And you know, what really is romantic as there may be sort of, there's a thought, so my camera's capturing the thought during that 10 seconds.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:22:07 And you only get those romantic ideas when you have these longer exposures. So I have no interest. I have a FA a 5,000 white Belker unit for about 30 years ago, flash unit, and I can get boom, instant exposures and I've done it three times maybe. And I quickly just put my Belker unit in the back room and I've never used it since, cause I can't get to my work so that the split second exposures, it's not where I want to live. So I, and I could probably get my exposures times down from 10 seconds to maybe six or eight or depending. I have no interest. I want to be at 10 seconds. That's my, that's my sweet spot for me as an artist.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:22:50 Talk to me more about that. That's a really interesting idea that I don't think I've ever heard anybody say before. I don't think I've ever heard anybody explain it like that. That is it. Talk to me more about having a longer exposure and I guess the, the, the romance of, of it all, is it, is it all of it coming together? Is it, is it, do you, is it that there's more feeling in the images that you produce? Why would you now this is obviously just devil's advocate. Why would you not want to have this

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:23:23 It's obvious to me? Why would I not? Right. I mean, it seems like you would, right. You would go to the FastWorks, but when it makes sense, the sitter doesn't have to, I have a head brace here from Victoria that I got to hold these people in place. So they, they sit still. If you came in for a portrait, Raymond, it would be, it would take me about an hour. So I'll on a, on a Friday afternoon, I create on my Fridays I mean here for eight hours and I'll make maybe three, four or five plates at most. So at the end of eight hours. So, you know, if I was going to take a serious portrait of you, it's going to take an hour, compose that, talk through it. I coach you a little bit. And there's that rapport and that relationship between you and me that has made over that one exposure. Shane Balkowitsch: 00:24:04 Do you know what I mean? Like if I had my D I could get my iPhone out and it'll capture a thousand images in that same amount of time, but there's something about we're going to go for that one portrait, Raymond, and this is what we gotta do to get it. And there's something there's something romantic about that. And I've had I've said this before. I mean, when was the last time you took a photograph of someone and I'm going to say that too, you know? And, and someone a complete stranger broke out into tears in front of you. Like when was the last time you on your iPhone, if you took a picture of some, a portrait of someone and you showed it to the person and they started crying, never. I have people in my studio every month. I mean, I have a box of tissues in my dark room for people that cry.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:24:47 And I'm not, I mean, well, I don't know. So I'm not, I'm not saying that I don't attribute that to my skill level. Okay. I attribute that completely to the process and, and what I'm trying to do here, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's not that I make the most people portraits that people break down in tears. That's not what I'm saying. I'm seeing this experience. And if they have, and it's not for everyone, but if these people that come in my sitters and they have the trust, and then they have an appreciation for history and what this plate represents that this plate is the most high resolution images ever taken of you in her life and will ever be taken of you at this plate, this image will outlast every other photograph ever taken of you in your life. This image will be the image that will be here 300 years from now, if someone cares for it and it with that history. And then, you know, I explained to you earlier that I explained the process and I show them the process, what all the work that it takes to get that one image and the response sometimes is sometimes it's laughter sometimes it's tears. I mean, when you have like a, I don't know if I can, I mean, when you have a complete stranger breakdown in tears, in your dark room, I there's something going on there. And I just, how can you not just like, you know what I mean? I can never take that for granted.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:26:02 [Inaudible] Yeah. And I've never, as I said, I've never, I've never had that happened obviously with with a cell phone photo. I don't know if that happens from weddings, but yeah,

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:26:13 Of course. Yeah. I mean, obviously I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it's that immediate thing it's like when the image comes up in the fixer, tears come to the face and it's just it's. And, and I, I get choked up myself sometimes and I've seen, I mean, I've been doing this for eight years now. I mean, and I, and I will get stuck. Sometimes I will get choked up and I don't, I I'm mixed that. I think there's something about the human condition. I think there's something about us as humans, that we are romantic thinking about leaving things out our lives behind, after we're gone as an oncology nurse. I mean you know, I, I know I have an appreciation for that though. You know, that I know that I'm not going to be here forever. I'm always thinking about, okay, I've got to put these in acid free sleeves.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:26:59 And you know, my will says that my work, all my work is going to the historical society of North Dakota with my other work. That's up there. I'm always thinking about what if Shane's done today. This is my last day. What am I leaving behind? And I hope it's not I hope it's not a vanity thing. I hope it's more of a, you know what I mean? Like some proof, well, why was I here in the first place? Well, this is why Shane was here. He was here to document these people. I mean, if that's, that's enough of a reason for me to be, you know, to do what I'm doing, all the, all the doing all this time that I've spent and hopefully all the time that I spend in the coming decades. I'm 51 now. So I, hopefully I can do this for another 25 years like that.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:27:45 I mean, that's my goal. My, I built the studio here at my, at my house, in my backyard. Cause I have this vision of me walking down the Hill with a, you know, a cane or something trying in and coming in on that Friday to take that last portrait. And you know, I don't know why these things are. These thoughts come into my mind and some people may think it's corny and that's fine if it's not for you, but that's not how I see these things. I see things as a very special document of the human that I'm capturing. I'm capturing 10 seconds of your life and you can never get it back. And I've dropped plates like I would do. Raymond comes in, we'd make this plate. Raymond likes to plate very much. You'd just, Oh, I love that portrait. You did Murray. You, maybe you don't even like it, but then definitely drop it. I break it. And then I still got Raymond in my studio. I can still sit the camera. Hasn't moved. The head brace is still there. The same chair I can, I can get back to that. I can sit Raymond back in that chair and try to capture that moment again. I can never get to it. I've tried. Like I can never get back to Raymond 19 minutes ago.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:28:48 That is a lot of pressure. Obviously, if it gets put on you to be able to capture something and then obviously take care of it immediately afterwards. I wanted to talk about now you just, in the past, you know, almost eight years now, you have gone from not owning a digital camera to now photographing some pretty notable figures including which I saw in the documentary five time, a heavyweight champion of the world of Andrew Holyfield, and then recently

Gretta Thornburg. Now these are people who may have never even heard of the wet plate process. They don't understand why a photo may take a considerable amount of time to capture. I can tell that you're passionate about this, but how do you clued them in on what you're about to do? How do you explain that process to them?

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:29:37 Well, first of all, the only reason I get a vendor Holy field, and like Deb Helen, one of the first native American Congresswoman in United States that just spoke with her last week again. So we can move on to these friendships, continue on Evander, Holyfield of Virgil Hill. And that, that played Evander. Holyfield is at the Smithsonian Institute and their portrait gallery. The only portrait they have of Evander Holyfield Virgil Hill was a North Dakota boxer Olympian box first, who probably are our most famous pugilists from North Dakota. And he was in the same room as a vendor Holyfield at the Olympics, or they were, they were in the same camp or whatever. So Virgil came out and before Virgil said, I can spend an hour with you. Virgil spent nearly four hours with me, showed me how to wrap my hands. And by the time Virgil left, he said to me, I'm going to get the champ out here. And I said, what are you talking about as well? Evander, Holyfield. Nice.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:30:36 And I was at my daughter. My, I can remember this Saturday very well. It was at my daughter's volleyball game. And someone called me on the phone. I picked up the phone and the phone said, champ will give you an hour if you can pick them up at the hotel in 10 minutes. And I said, I'll be there at eight. And I drove to the hotel, Evander, Holyfield jumped into my car, and then I had, I, then, then there's a trust, right? Because now I I'm at the hotel. I didn't have any my chemistry right here, any, they didn't have any clean plates to me. It was a disaster. Right. But here I got this opportunity. So I got to make the best of this. So on the way down, you know what he's driving, he's next to me in my car. So then I just start explaining to him why this is.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:31:14 And you can about imagine the photography studios that have Evander Holyfield, and you know what I mean, ESPN, I mean, you can have automatic. I mean, he's millions and millions of millions of professional photographs have been taken of this man. You know, over his life and here I'm, he's never had his wet plate tickets. So there's, there's something about that uniqueness of it. And once you explain it, but I had to get that rapport because that's shot along the teth on Smithsonian. I knew I wanted his shirt off. And how do you tell the five-time heavyweight champion of the world? Oh, by the way of Andrew, can you take your shirt off? You know what I mean? Like, how do you, so I had to gain that. I knew I wanted to get the rock useless, fists up, no shirt. And, and, you know, it was that trust that that I was able to in that car ride and then in my studio and my studio at that time, wasn't this natural light white plates do in my backyard.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:32:03 It was a corner of a warehouse. So I'm taking a vendor wholly field into this corner of this warehouse, which you must've thought it was easy. Right? I mean, there's all these light fixtures and bottles of chemicals. And I mean, it's just a warehouse that, you know, just not think that any, I mean, out of. So so it goes back to the rapport, Raymond and end the trust. And so it's all been word of mouth. So all these people that [inaudible], I got my 15 minutes, I know I heard that she's coming to standing rock. I was doing my native American series, Northern Plains, native Americans, a modern way, perspective project of mine. And as soon as I, they heard that she was coming to standard rock. I knew I had my, and I made one phone call down to there. And the people standing rock gave up 15 minutes of their time with Gretta too.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:32:48 They knew about my work and what I was doing for them for many years before that. Right. I mean, standing rock people pull. I mean, they're there. Many of them have come into my studio and they said, Oh, we'll give you Gretta. And that's when those opportunities knock, and then you just have to take them, but it's all been word of mouth. So there isn't some like, you know, propaganda machine trying to get these celebrities to combine the people that have come into my studio, found out who I am, and then they tell someone else. And that's it. That's how all my sitters have come in,

Raymond Hatfield: 00:33:20 I guess, I guess. Do they have a sense by the time you start the exposure, by the time you remove that lens cap and you start that exposure, do you think that they have some sort of sense of the weight of what is about to happen?

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:33:36 Well, I don't, I don't, I'm not sure I can talk to about the Gretta situation. Cause that was most recent. So when they came out and I, and I really said, can I only have 15 minutes with Gretta? Which isn't insane. I should never say that. You know what I mean? Like, but if I said, I need at Gretta for an hour, there's a good chance that I couldn't have gotten her. Right. So I had to say, all I need is 15 minutes, which is a stupid thing to say. I mean, that's a stupid, you know, I'm in the middle of the field, down at standing rock with my cameras at chemistry, in my dark room. And I don't even have a chance to take a test exposure. And I have to figure out it's F eight, three seconds on the.to get that exposure. And it was just a gut check at that time, but they came to me and they said, well we only have time for one photograph and my heart sunk right away.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:34:20 Cause I had this idea of doing a documentary photograph, which is a closeup that I did a Greta. Cause I didn't want to get too creative. I wanted to make sure that you knew who she was. So I wanted to in your face, I wanted to show the 16 year old credit thing, Swedish environmentalist. I want them to, to show who she was. And that, that would, for me, if I only had one chance to get a photograph was going to be that close up photograph of her when the plate was coming in the fixer, I'm trying to answer your question. I poured the fixture onto the plate and Greta was to my right. Her father was to Gretta, was to my left. Her father was standing to my right and I was on the ground with the bottle and the, in the tray. And I poured the fixer on there.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:34:53 That image came to life and you can see that in the documentary. It was a collective wool like her dad and her just both said, Whoa, at the same time. And I took that opportunity. I looked up at Savante and, and they, they continue to, I got a text message from them two weeks ago, by the way, it's been 10 months. So I spent time with I looked up to Savante. I said, can I do another one? He said, absolutely. And that's when I got my chance for my second portrait, which is the most important portrait, which is the one is that the library of Congress, which has told to stand in for us all. And that's where I was able to now I can get creative. Now I can get her in the environment and how I can, I can play a little bit with what I was, what I had to do. And so my 15 minutes turned into 20 minutes and she was in the car.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:35:44 If you know, Raymond, if I told you that Gretta Thornburg, you'd get 15 minutes with Gretta Ellenberg and you grab your camera and your gear and you got your 15 minutes as next Tuesday, the thing bird, but your camera has to be the memory you've got to be completely maxed out. And you only have two exposures that you only can take. You can't delete it. You can't delete one exposure and get three. You can't, you're only there's no, you get two exposures. It's all you get. You get to snap the shutter, open the shutter and close it twice. I mean, you would tell me that's insane. Yes. What I mean like in modern, modern photography world, that is that's absurd. Why would you handcuff me? You know what I mean? Like why would I, Raymond, if I asked you to do that with your digital camera, even a film camera, why would you Shane, even, you know, even a film camera, maybe it has 12 or 15 exposure. You can use one roll of film. Oh, wow. I got 15 exposures. I mean, that would be a godsend. Right? I get, I get the snap, the shutter 15 times I had two exposures.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:36:44 And in that sense, what's the most important thing for you as far as I take that back. The most important thing for you has to be the planning process, right? Ensuring that you have a vision of what it is that you want to capture before you actually get into that situation. Nothing that you're shooting at this point is reactionary. Correct?

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:37:07 I always try to, even when sitters come in that I've never met before, I'm always trying to, I go out and I I crawled a Facebook page or whatever. I try to find out who they are. I'm not looking at previous images of them, but I'm trying to understand who are they as a person, even before they come in. It's just my, I have to get a feel and then I will find a piece of art or something or another photograph that just kind of inspires me to say, this is kind of, because not all the people that come into my studio are professional models. You know, I don't, these aren't professional models and now they're not professionals I'm asking them to perform. And that's the other beautiful thing about this, this, and I describe it as a dance between the photographer and the sitter.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:37:48 Cause I can do the most beautiful wet plate work and photography work, which I don't, but I could, if I did it doesn't matter if my sitter does not do what I need them to do and which is hold still. And the blink only wants. And do you know what I mean? Like hold a pose. I mean, so they, these people come in and you have to perform when Gretta Thornburg was in a 20 mile per hour wind in the open Plains. And she did not, I did not have my head brace, which she had to stand there and hold still. And that was a three second exposure F eight and three seconds. I mean, there's a lot of blurriness can happen in three seconds. And you know what I mean? Like it's, it's a pretty sharp image. It's a pretty sharp image. And I've heard people, you know, there was one comment that I wish the image was sharper.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:38:31 It's like, I don't know you don't, you're understanding what it, what this is. You're not understanding what this photograph is. If you're asking for more sharpness, if you, if you were there next to me with a camera, with your camera and I stood you and I, we got to get great as photographs she's standing there, you know, in the wind and it's three seconds. I mean, you would say, well, that's going to be very difficult. And she had never done this before either. So there's that coaching that has to go and that's, but that's building while I'm coaching, I'm re I'm building the rapport, right. But it's dance. They have to perform and I have to perform. And I think, you know, some of that emotion that the sitters have towards the work that I do of them, I think that has to do what they realize. They recognize that, Hey, I had to do something to get this photograph. Do you know what I mean? You come into my studio and you, you know, you bring your camera and you start snapping shots. You can capture shots of me. I have no idea. You're taking a photograph of me and you can still get a good shot of me. Right. I could be doing something. I mean, you don't, they know that there's some, there's some intent with the portrait and with that intent comes these emotions. I don't know if that makes any sense.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:39:40 It does. Yeah. I see it. I mean, the way that I feel like you've kind of forged your path into photography is, is almost out of necessity, right? Because you, you don't really have any other option. You can't just use it as snapshots. You can't walk around. It's not before to here. It's not before to there. It's just not an option for you. So having to work within those constraints and make those constraints strengths is what it sounds like is what exactly you've done to, to be able to capture the type of portraits that you have. And again, they're, they're incredible, but going back to these long exposure times, I think that maybe the listener might be a little bit confused as to why exposure times might be so long. So obviously in film days, you know, you could just go buy a roll of 400, 800 ASA film with digital. You can set your ISO to whatever you want for whatever the light sensitivity needs to be for wet plate photography. How do we, what is the sensitivity? What's the, what's the speed, I guess, of a wet plate.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:40:45 I don't know these terms. I mean, I know of these terms cause I've, I have photography friends, so ISO is sensitivity, right? I think someone told me that it's negative, negative. It's like negative four or something like that. And again, I'm no expert. I mean, I don't know what that I understand. You're telling me ISO is sense and I'm not being dumb here. I'm being honest with you. Okay. I don't, I don't care. I mean, I, I, this is the only process I follow. So I don't, I just know my process. So, but I, I, I want to say that a photographer wants, cause I I've been asked this question before. I it's a negative ISL. So as far as sensitivity and you can change your chemicals, you can mix there's different, there's different recipes for different kinds of clothing that can make them more sensitive and less sensitive as well.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:41:34 But I don't, I don't, I don't know any of these terms that you're, I know what the term is. You can explain to me what they are. But I don't, it's not Raymond, I'm not being naive for, I guess let me, I told them I have no, I have no interest. I don't totally understand it. Doesn't apply to what I'm doing. Just it doesn't apply to what I'm doing. Okay. So then let me rephrase the question. It's almost like if, if I'm a painter and then you're a sculptor telling me something about sculpture, I don't really feel that I'm a photographer. Raymond. I don't, I'm an image maker. I don't, I'm not really. And it took me five years to even call myself a photographer and not because I'm better than, than photographers, but I just didn't want to insult real photographers because I know there's people like yourself that know all these other technical things.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:42:23 And I don't, I'm not about technical at all. I'm about hands-on shooting from the hip gut check, get the image at all costs. It doesn't matter. And, and well, how I got the image and I tell the students this, I don't care how you get the image. Nobody cares what lens Anzel Adams used. Nobody even cares. What process Anzel Adams used do that? Hey, I mean, you really, I mean, there's some professor may, but you're, you're not, you don't care how Angela Adams, I'm just using him for an example, how he got to his image is who gives us it doesn't matter. Deedee, get to his image. That's all that matters. So if you have to stand on your hands, do four jumping jacks before the exposure do a Cartwheel, I don't care what you have to do. As long as you get to the image, that's all that matters. So everything up to that point is irrelevant.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:43:13 So, and I T I totally get that. And I love that state that you're in almost this this, this totally ignorant state of photography, right. As if, because I remember when I was as all beginners, we get so excited about these new things that happen for us, that we can, it seems like we're taking such big leaps and bounds forward, even though they're in the beginning, we don't know all the technical aspects. And it sounds like, I mean, it sounds like the, the sensitivity wasn't even an issue back in the day, because it all kind of, we all have the same amount of light, I suppose. So let me rephrase that question, which is does, do you find that that the, the, the exposure times are pretty consistent in consistent light? Or do they vary depending on how long the plate is? In the I'm sorry, the silver nitrate, I believe it was. Is that what you said? Silver nitrate.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:44:19 Yeah. It has nothing to it. It has nothing to do with that. It there was a struggle when I built my natural light studio because in my old studio where I took a vendor Holyfield, I had three big, huge fixtures that had these daylight bulb. So for growing plants, cause this process loves loves an actual light. It loves UV light. Okay. Infrared doesn't register. Okay. So reds are red shirt. If I had a red shirt on and you take my wet plate, it's a black shirt. If I have a blue shirt on it's a white shirt and white play process, it's just how the colors translate. So this, this process loves ultraviolet and it, it, you know you know, infrared, it doesn't really register. So you Sensitivity. Yeah.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:45:07 At my old studio, would I turn the lights on? I always got what I've got because I, if I always had all the fixtures on, I always got the same exposure. Right. It was always, it was very, very similar, but now I have my natural light studio. So a cloud may come over maybe overcast that day, or it may be a bright sunny day. So there's, there's an adjustment that I have to make every given day, every given plate. So I will go in and I'll compose a shot and I'll have in my mind. Okay. That's a nine second exposure just because I made so many of these, I just I'm in the light. Just the light I can just do. I don't use a meter. I just know that this is a nine second exposure. The amount of light off my subject's face right now is nine seconds.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:45:44 Now I go back in the dark room. I pour the plate, come out, back out three minutes later and a Cobb moves over and now I'm so send them at 11 seconds, but it's all, it's all hit or miss it's all shooting. But the point is I shoot, you know what I mean? Like, I'm going to shoot. I'm going to shoot at that 10 seconds. Oh, well it wasn't right. You know what I mean? But the point is to take the shot. And the other thing I want to kind of explain to you, maybe your listeners and went in, and this is, you know, your podcast about beginning photography is don't if I don't want to preach. Okay. But I've got to say this. Okay. Chasing gear. Okay. Chasing the newest lens, chasing the newest camera, chasing the newest flash, chasing the newest, whatever it may be.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:46:26 It's not, for me. It's not where it would be at. Okay. Because I've seen some beautiful images, pinhole images where the camera doesn't even have a lens. And it goes back to my idea. It's all about the final image. So these guys that changed their lenses like underwear. Okay. They, it's not, I worry more about the image and I only use Carl's eyes. Tests are lenses. That's the only lenses that I have. And I've got 150 year old lenses on the shelves here. I never Mount them in my camera. I never create with them because I feel like if I create with the same tool, the same lens, the same error lens that I'm going to eventually get better at it. Like it's, it's like when I was a golfer, I use the same putter for 15 years. Okay. I didn't change my equipment.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:47:14 I thought that even though this may be an insuperior technologically putter, this putter is newer partners made out of better materials and stuff like that out on the market, which I go to God, I could upgrade it to them, but you know what, my 15 year old putter I've been touting with it. It's got my marks. You can see, you know what I mean? You could have see all the eye, there's a usefulness. There's a, there's a there's a comfort level that I have with that particular instrument that I like that. And that's why I think when you see my work, you can see, Oh, that's, that's a, that's a bulk of which like, you know, if you see what I'm, I need American works and you see another one, somewhat it, you quickly see that, you know, if I change lenses, I may change my whole aesthetic.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:47:59 And, and I don't want to change lenses. I want to, I'm a simpleton. I am a, if there was ever such a thing as a one trick pony, I am a one trick pony to grave. I mean, I am a one trick pony. This is all I do. I don't, I don't care about anything else. So, you know, it's not that I, I mean, to be naive and stuff. And I have photographers that come in and early on when for photographers started flocking to my studio they, you know, they quickly, and I had been told this more than once Shane don't, don't grab a book, don't listen to someone else's opinion. Don't, you know what I mean? Like, don't do those things, do what you're doing, because somehow you're just stumbling. You're finding your own way. And it works for you and, and, and, and their, their thought.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:48:44 And what they shared with me is that they thought that someone would have some kind of influence on me. And then maybe that, you know, my, my aesthetic or my work would change. And I'm, I'm always willing to change and, and look at different things, things, but there's something about this way that I don't, I kind of block out and I take advice when photographers. One of the things that I learned all the time as a photographer, I've had photographers have been in my studio. I had one that was 55 year photographer. He's been protecting photography for 55 years. It was in here last week. He drove in from out of state. I, I gained something from him, you know what I mean? Like, I'm, I want to learn something from him. But it's not about how he does it. It's about what I can take from him, the way that he does his stuff and how I can apply to my, where I'm trying to go with mine

Raymond Hatfield: 00:49:29 And make it your own, obviously. And I think, again, that's, that's, what's so unique about just seeing something new with fresh eyes. And I think one of the reasons why you've had such great success in capturing these these really unique, really unique images on top of the, the, the, the, the technique that it takes, not the technique, the the process in which it takes to capture the images that you do coming at it with such fresh eyes is something it's such a, it's such a skill and a benefit. And I think that that's why so many of their photographers have told you, like, don't, don't listen to anybody else. Don't read into anything else. But again, I think that you're doing it the right way. I love it. I love it. When you I'm always interested to know from a photographer, because I consider you a photographer. You are capturing images using a camera to capture images. I consider you a photographer. I don't think that has anything to do so much with the technical abilities. It's, it's being able to capture image. So to me, you're a photographer. So my question is what do you think are some of the unique challenges that you face outside of the process of capturing a photo? What are some of the unique challenges that you face compared to modern photographers?

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:50:45 Well, I mean, if the, the, the real big challenge and I alluded to it a little bit earlier is taking us on the road. Like people think they'll say, well, can you just come here and take pictures? And it's, it's not like that I have to actually have. I mean, can you imagine how many iPhone photographs would be taken today? And I don't know if your listeners know this, but we've, we we've taken more digital photographs today in 24 period than we have in the first 150 years of photography. But if you're, if to take an iPhone photograph, if you had to have a dark room with you and you had to actually develop in and fix your iPhone photograph within five minutes of taking it, I phone photographs would be taking. So there's that the difficulty of taking this on the road is, is one of the things that, and anytime you go on the road and are in a different environment and stuff, it's just not, you know, people just think that you're just grabbing my camera.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:51:41 You don't even, they think it's my big box cameras. So they think, Oh, I can just throw that over my shoulder. You're immune. Like, I'm just like, like, it's my iPhone. I can just, it's just a little bit bigger, but it acts the same way. It's not like that at all. I mean, I have to actually make my film out of glass and silver nitrate. I mean, in the field, I have to, I have an entire portable dark room with all the trades and I have to have ample amounts of water and the fixers gotta be there. Developer's gotta be there. The silver nitrates gotta be there. I gotta gotta have glass. And it all has to be there to make an image. And you just don't have that today. You can just put it in your back pocket when you get to your destination, pull it out.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:52:19 And I mean, you don't, we don't even use tripods anymore. I mean, these are things that I think about like pride pods for the love of God. I mean, I don't know. The last time I saw, you know, you don't need them with modern cameras, tripods. There's a, there's a purpose for those, right? I mean, there's, I mean, we don't even need them. Our exposure times are so quick and cameras have gotten so efficient and we don't even need tripods. I mean, my iPod here weigh 600 pounds and is 14 feet tall. So, you know, these are, these are just things, but people don't think about that. They don't think about where we've come. You know what I mean? People think you know, like the flash photography and the old westerns where they did their magnesium, where they would like the powdered magnesium, you know, the old Western, they take a picture of the dead guy in the casket or whatever.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:53:08 You always there's always that well, people don't understand that that's 19, 1906, my processes here's before that. So people think that that's old time photography when, when magnesium shooters that magnesium flash, that was like state of the arts top of the line. I mean, you were, you were actually able to maybe even take a picture at dusk. I mean, there was no photographs in the Victorian era that were taken at night. I mean, there was only one source of there wasn't flash there's one source of light. It was the sun. So at nine o'clock, if sitting bull came into your house, you're not taking city and bullets photograph because it's at nine o'clock at night and you have no sun people, you know what I mean? But we're so used to we're so used to flash we're so used to all the modern conveniences photography, we don't, we don't think about, you know, I've got a head brace that holds my clamp. So these people's heads in the position so that they don't move your face.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:54:08 Yeah. That's something that I've never had to look for on Amazon. I got to tell you that

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:54:14 Fine. Now, if you find one, like if you find one at a garage sale, buy it for me. Because the last one that I want to say, I saw sold for like $6,000.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:54:24 These aren't something that you could manufacture. You could make something like this.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:54:29 Mine was not a, mine is a remanufactured one, a friend of mine, a wet plate brother of mine had an original and he took it to a Foundry, had a castmate. And he was making these before he passed away about a year and a half ago. So so yeah, you don't, and you can come up with a modern solution for it, but to have an actual Victorian and head brace, if you had an original, you know, the price is probably six to $10,000 for an original. If you, if you, if it was in good condition and all it is is a pedal on, you know, a stand,

Raymond Hatfield: 00:55:00 I got to say, Shane, this is a, there's a lot of work. This is a lot of work. You know, today we have cameras that, as you said, they're lighter, they're faster. They're better dynamic range. When you started wet plate, surely you thought to yourself, you know, I like this, but maybe I might pick up one of these new current cameras to see if I like that as well. Did that thought ever cross your mind?

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:55:26 Never. Now I have a polar right here in the, you know, someone sent me a Polaroid. I have film cameras just for own display. Cause I try when the students come in and I try to show them like the history of cameras and stuff like that, and just go home. Some of the, the old Brownings and stuff like that, I have them on they're on display. They're just sitting here on the shelf. They're never, I never load them with film. I've never, I never have no interest. I mean, I have no interest in any and that's to be sad if I could not practice what plate tomorrow, for whatever reason, like they be like, just could not, I would stop making images. I would, I would not, I would not tell them I would not convert. I have no interest. And I know that, you know, that sounds stupid, but it's just, it's just where I'm at. It's just where I'm at. And it has to be where I'm at.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:56:14 I don't know if it sounds stupid. I wouldn't say that. It sounds stupid, but it definitely may sound foreign. Definitely may sound foreign. What is overall, I want you to tell me about this current project, which you talked about earlier, the Northern Plains photographing native Americans, right? Why you think the wet plate process is probably the best medium to capture these incredible images? Well, because

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:56:41 This was the process. That was the first time that we saw photographs of native Americans. Remember where you're all in the Eastern part of the country. And it has, as you started being in West the, the, the photographs from the frontier, these web plate photographers would be out there on the frontier and they'd be capturing and sending these photographs of native Americans and other subjects back to the city. And they was, was that, that these are the first photograph images. So it's not you know, you go to Deadwood, South Dakota and that you can go into the little booth. And we all know these boosts where it used to be a film camera, but now it's a Dicamba where they put a sepia tone filter or something on it. And they're trying to pretend they rescue up in a cowboy hat and they sit you in a little booth and hand your rifle and they try to make, what are they trying to do?

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:57:29 They're trying to fool you into thinking that they're making a wet plate. I'm not fooling anyone. I'm actually doing the exact process that these people are trying. And I, and I've had a photographer from Madora came into my studio and he's been doing this for 30 years. He's been mocking, not, not, not mocking in a bad way. Great gentlemen, nothing wrong with this. I'm just saying he was, he's been faking the process with either film or digital cameras for 30 years at Madora. And he came in and he was just like blown away. Like he just like, it was this watershed moment for him. He had no, obviously he knew about the wet plate process had never seen it in person. And he comes in and I took his wet plate and it was, there was this very strange thing that happened with him that he really got to see for the first time, what he's been faking the entire time. So the first photograph, the first ever photograph of city bowl, the first ever photograph a soothing bowl. Do you mind if I get up from the store?

Raymond Hatfield: 00:58:29 Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead. Yeah.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:58:33 Well, the first ever photograph, and this is only for the people that aren't listening, but this here, if you look, if you, you will know this photograph, if you know anything about symbol, this photograph is the first ever photograph of sitting bull ever captured, guess where it was captured at

Raymond Hatfield: 00:58:48 Where's. That is Mark North Dakota, where you are by

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:58:53 This gentleman here, Orlando Scott golf. So the first ever photograph of sitting bull was captured in my hometown of Bismarck, North Dakota. He had his studio on the third floor of the Blockhouse building that's stride drive by when I come home every day, I drive by Orlando Scott Gough's studio, where he worked out of where he captured the first ever photograph of sitting bull. And to talk about my native American series, Northern Plains, native Americans, a modern what play perspective do you know who my first native American I ever captured was?

Raymond Hatfield: 00:59:24 I do because I've seen the documentary, but go ahead and let the listeners know.

Shane Balkowitsch: 00:59:28 Well for the listeners, this is my photograph of Ernie. Lapointe the great grandson of sitting bull. So in the same city, in the same process, I captured city bull's great-grandson to 135 years after Orlando, Scott Goff, didn't in the same city. And that one portrait kind of just blew things up for me. It, it, there was a realization before that I was going over to 40 Abraham Lincoln. There were some reenactors over there, you know what I mean? Like you're, they, they, they, these reenactors and stuff, they kind of are attracted to these white plate photographers, modern day ones. And I have a lot of brothers and sisters that practice a late for typography and they take, they take portraits of reenactors, but as soon as I captured Ernie, LaPointe, it occurred to me that there's real history. You know what I mean? Like, I don't want to have to, I don't have to pretend that these people are from the Victorian era and even no, I do sometimes, but I don't, we're not pretending these photos of my native Americans.

Shane Balkowitsch: 01:00:29 These, these are my friends that come in and they're in their regalia. They know that they're going to have a formal portrait taken. And what did they do? They wear their best clothes, their, their, their regalia it's, it's, it's, it's, these are very important religious close to them. And so if you shoot a native American in a historic process, it gives you exactly what you want to see for me. I mean, it just, it seems natural. And, and, and, and, and you can see, I think you can see that there was I got an email about two years ago was from Google and someone at Google, there was one of my wet plates was attributed to me and I don't know, wait for it to an article, or if it was on a site or where it was, but I got this message.

Shane Balkowitsch: 01:01:18 And it said we wanted to let you know that you couldn't possibly be creator of this because you're, you're using, you're attributing your, your photo. This is your photograph. And this is an historic photograph. It was one of my wet plates. And I told him that they were, they were accusing me of pretending that this historic photograph that I took of a native American was a historic photograph. And I could not possibly be the photographer. So I quickly responded to the emails, sent the images of me having my, my hand, my arm around the, my sitter, a picture, taking the picture, and I sent it over to them and they, they wrote me an apology letter back saying we didn't realize that you know, that, that, that was your image and that's a modern day image. So I don't know.

Raymond Hatfield: 01:02:06 Wow, well, that's, that's a great story, by the way. I'm sure that whoever sent that email, it just had to eat,

Shane Balkowitsch: 01:02:15 You know, it was just kind of in passing. I wish I would have saved it or something. So I really of understood the context of it, but in some, there was, the image was out there and it was being used. I don't know if it was, maybe it was being used on Wikipedia or something like that. It was being, we, my image was being used. It was attributed to me. They knew that I was, I was alive and well, they could send me an email. Right. And they knew that the image was an historic image. It couldn't possibly have been made in present day. They knew it was a wet plate that probably further got them thinking that this could not have been, you know, in the modern day. Right. And they, they kicked off his letter to me, it's using me of not that, that I, I was, I was taking someone's historic photograph and claiming it to be my own,

Raymond Hatfield: 01:02:56 Like jokes on you. Here's the iPhone photo selfie that I got with my sitter. So funny. I want to know a little bit more about the the project that you're doing. What is the, what is the message overall that you're trying to share? What is the power that your photographs give to the native Americans that that you're photographing?

Shane Balkowitsch: 01:03:19 Well, I don't I didn't know that again, this is all not planned. Do you know what I mean? There was not some great, I took the wet plate of Ernie LaPointe and it wasn't you know, like the, the series wouldn't, didn't start immediately with me some time, but the image got so much notoriety and so many people just really liked it. I just asked the code of good hustle was my second person that I took. And he came in and he's a professor at United tribes. And he came in and I sat and I shared his photographs. So it was this, this building kind of thing. For me, I know the the atrocities of what happened to the native Americans that the number of about 75 million native Americans have been killed since Columbus landed. And I wanted to, I wanted to prove that they're still here, that they're there. S

hane Balkowitsch: 01:04:11 They're still here in spirit. They're still here. They still have their language. They still have their culture. They still have their religion. They're still here. And I'm one of the hugest on the LAR. I'm going to say it it's largest honor that I've ever received in my life. Calvin Grinnell, the MEJ nation elder came into my studio. He called me on the phone one day. I had been, I'd been in this process for about two years, and he'd been in my studio a couple of times and knew who I was. And he called me on the phone and says, I have your name. And I said, what do you mean? He says, I have your name. And I said, I don't know, what, what are you talking about? I got, when he says, I have your native American name, he says, I'd like to have a formal ceremony in your studio in two weeks time with, with witnesses and food and the whole nine yards.

Shane Balkowitsch: 01:04:55 And give you the name shit catcher, which is [inaudible]. So I am Hidatsa, I've been adopted into the Hidatsa tribe as shadow catcher. And this, this series is always had really important in my life. And I was really, it's always been, if you ask me, what, what does your, I remain work like my, my main goal for my wet plate work, once I started capturing native Americans was capturing native Americans. And when I got that name something just changed. Something's changed. Like I was now, you know, it's going to take me 20 years. I'm, I'm almost seven years into this so far. And I've captured 400 to beat Americans so far in the process. Every plate goes to the historical site in North Dakota, it's in their vault. And my goal is a thousand. So it'll take me another 12 years or so to get to a thousand, a thousand white plates, native American. So, but I was always dedicated to this. My life's work is my native American work. And, but when I got the name and they, they bestowed upon me, the name, these people are no longer. My, they are no longer just strangers coming in. They're my brothers and sisters and it's I don't, I have a hard time articulating what that means. I trust that I had been given by by the native American tribes. And so I, I just don't want to let them go.

Raymond Hatfield: 01:06:22 Yeah. What, and I gotta say we haven't really talked much about the documentary, but the documentary that featured you, this wet plate process and also photographing the native Americans. I mean, just the what's really interesting is that obviously there's some cultural hesitance to getting a photograph taken of a native American, right. For them to have a photograph taken, but to see them almost to see the perception, almost turnaround because of the seriousness that you take in the photographs and the, the preservation efforts that you have in order to continue on with their their history, their lineage is really, I mean, an incredible thing to be able to work on. And I think that it's something that many photographers would just jump at the chance if they had something like that. So for those who are now, I know that you said that that was never your intent when you started shooting wet plate, but it evolved into that, right. For those who are just getting into photography, what would you say to, to, to them about maybe following a, a something that could potentially turn into a lifelong project?

Shane Balkowitsch: 01:07:38 Just be open, just be open, be honest with yourself and, and, and, you know you can't, I don't think you can, like, it wasn't like it was searching for it. It just kinda like fell in my lap, but when it did fall in my lap, right, I was, I was aware. And, and then you just have, have to dedicate yourself to it. I think that's the real thing. I mean, you really just have to say this, I'm going to do this. This inspires me. I think that I can make a difference in, in in the world or in life, or, you know, the entire, you know, entire people's lives. And, and then just chase it and just just kind of go for it. But if you, if you just, I've always shooting, I'm always going for the shot.

Shane Balkowitsch: 01:08:23 I'm never, I don't talk much about it. That's to say, and if I do talk about it, it's happening. Like, I, I'm not much of a talker if I'm, if I talk about it, it's going to happen because I just have to will it, some of these images just like haunt me. I have them in my head. I don't know how to get them under glass, but I haunt me. I just chase them until I get them. And then, you know, I can move on to the next image. So if something, you just have to be, you have to be open for it. You can't be looking too hard for it, but you have to be open to things. And then with, if you act out of kindness and generosity, how can you go wrong? I mean, it's not some, there's not some magic you know, some magic formula that I have here.

Shane Balkowitsch: 01:09:09 There's nothing magical about what I'm doing. I just I've just tried to be genuine and kind thoughtful. And I share that with the world and, and it'll come back on you. So I never do anything to get something back. Like for instance, having my own native American name you know, I never anticipated that. I never thought, Oh, if I do this, I'll get that. Or, you know what I mean? Like you just throw these good things, throw these good intentions, throw them out in the world, just keep throwing up. You're not, may not get nothing back at first. Trust me, you throw enough good intentions out in the world. Something's going to come back. You never know what that is. And like what this documentary I had, no, I mean, it wasn't my plan to do a documentary. I mean, these two young filmmakers, this is the first documentary they followed me around for a year and a half with zero budget. They had no money. I never got paid. I never paid them. They don't pay even on the sale of the video right now. I don't give any money from it. It's not about that. It's about these two artists wanted to feature me and it's it's so you throw things out in the world and you'd be surprised at what comes back.

Raymond Hatfield: 01:10:18 It's funny that you said that you don't have a magic process. As many people would say the web plate is literally a magic process as a, as I guess you're developing it. And I would say that your sitters probably would say the exact opposite. That it's pretty magical process. Having never seen one done myself. I can only, I can only imagine. And one day I look forward to coming out to Bismarck, North Dakota, and possibly seeing you put this together and after you put out your manual, you know, come into the masters then and and, and see how it's done. So I really look forward to that. Shane, you've been so gracious with your time today. You know, this has been more than an hour. We're at an hour and a half right now. I don't want to take up any more of your time. So for the listeners who maybe they were driving in their car, they have no idea what a wet plate even looks like. They can't even fathom the difference between and a, a traditional photograph. Where can listeners find you online, learn more about you and see some of your images?

Shane Balkowitsch: 01:11:22 Yeah. So on Google there's just got to find my website and instances, archaic website names. So I'm just going to, if you type in the bulk of which B a L K O w I T S C H, that's my last name wet played on Google, you will find you know, multiple articles, the Wikipedia page, and there's a TEDx talk that I've done. So if people are interested also the documentary can be found on Amazon. So Amazon prime right now you can watch the documentary again. It's, it's called bulk, which my last name. And if you're a that's, if you're in the United States, you can get it on Amazon. And if you want to, if you're out of the country and Canada or Europe or somewhere else, you can go to vimeo.com and search for the documentary bulk, which, and it was such a magical process to just to be involved with and to let them just do what they wanted to do.

Shane Balkowitsch: 01:12:16 I had no input into this documentary. They, in the, out of the goodness of their heart, they decided they wanted to do this and that. And I always, again, it goes back to what I said earlier. Just be open to it, right? I mean I knew there was going to be, some of my time was gonna be involved and I'd have to, you know what I mean, make a lot mints for, for all this, this video camera work and stuff like that. But it was like, just, just do it, just do it, make yourself available, throw it out there, let these people let these these kind of artists do what they think they want to do and just trust them. And, and again, it goes back to that trust. And I think as photographers, if, if your listeners are shooting portraits all about that report all about the pressing, even that trust image is going to come, it's going to come at some point. And that's what I've always worked at is trying to gain the trust and the images will follow.