At the World Bodypainting Festival in Austria the best artists of their trade gather every year to take part in competitions and to celebrate creativity. But not only bodypainters and models, also hundreds of photographers are drawn to this event to capture the fleeting art on painted bodies and faces.
None of them has ever tried to use the wet plate collodion technique at this event- an early photographic process that was invented in 1851 by Frederick Scott Archer. It involves taking images with collodion that has been sensitized in a silver nitrate bath on glass or aluminium plates. Having fallen in love with the process a few months earlier, I just had to try it. I made my images with an 18x24cm wooden large format camera on aluminium plates and a portable darkroom tent outdoors during two days at the penisula in Pörtschach in July 2016 - a true logistical challenge for me!
More info: danielavallant.com
