The Clown
A woman goes to a doctor—that’s how the story always begins. “Doctor, I’m depressed,” the woman says; life is harsh, unforgiving, cruel. The doctor lights up. The treatment, after all, is simple. “The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight,” the doctor says, “Go and see her! That should sort you out.” The woman bursts into tears. “But doctor,” she says, “I am Pagliacci.”
The first tintype portrait I made of Zowie, my now constant collaborator, was during a fall blizzard back in 2019. Now 3 ½ years and a few dozen plates later we were back to bring her vision to life in my little Calgary studio.
Zowie handled her make-up, the costume and the pose for the portrait. I took care of the capturing it using wet plate collodion and making a little video of the process.
The result is a 5x7” tintype portrait made on black aluminum.
The portrait was created by hand using an Agfa Ansco 5x7 Universal View camera with an Industar-51 210mm f/4.5 lens.
The digital copy of the plate and the video were made with a Fujifilm X-T4 and Fujinon 33mm f/1.4 lens.