Finding My Voice with Mark Osterman

Recorded: Wednesday, October 14th at 7 pm ET

Click! Photography Festival Keynote

Mark Osterman began his personal investigation of early photographic processes while attending the Kansas City Art Institute in the 1970s. When he stumbled upon the wet collodion process in the 1980s he found a technique that suited his personal interest in early technology. Once mastering the process he regarded it as simply another tool and it took years for him to find the voice that would be complemented by the technique. Osterman will discuss his own techno-aesthetics with this illustrated lecture that includes his earliest experiments up to Anatomy, his most recent body of work made with the wet collodion process.

Mark Osterman is Process Historian at the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York. He graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1977 with an emphasis in string musical instruments design and construction. Osterman began his research in early photographic processes at the Art Institute and continued while teaching at the George school, Newtown, Pennsylvania.

With his wife, France Scully Osterman, the couple taught the first modern workshops in the wet collodion process and published the Collodion Journal (1995-2001). Osterman went on to teach the evolution of early photographic processes for the Advanced Residency Program in Photograph Conservation from 1999-2010 and established himself as a resource for research in photographic processes from the asphalt heliograph to gelatin emulsions. His teaching and writings are well known to the photographic community. Osterman also used historic processes for his own photography and continues to exhibit his work internationally. He is represented by Howard Greenberg Gallery (NYC) Tilt Gallery (Scottsdale, AZ) and Photo Gallery International (Tokyo).