Earlier this year I got offered by Sergio Gutierrez (who collects all sorts of oddities, including tintypes and daggs)  if I wanted to particpate showing my tintypes along with some amazing artists at Norco College Gallery . Obviously, I had to say yes. I have never really shown any of my stuff out of the San Diego County and thought it would be good exposure and experience. So after long long long weeks of figuring out what to frame, then actually framing it, Its was the day of the show.

So on Septemebr 10th my parents and my boyfriend drove up all the way to Corona to see the show.

The artists I was along side of :
Drew Reese
Hilary Sloane
Laura Parker
Barbara May
Sergio Gutierrez
Jeff Nelson

A BIG GIANT THANK YOU to :
My Parents
Karin Skiba
Sergio Gutierrez

If you live in San Diego, you know that summer really starts when the fair is open and everyone is out of school. I started going o the fair about two years back with friends and to of course see all the arts and crafts that are at the fair. Especially the photography part of the fair. I never had the guts until this year to enter something into the fair for the Student Showcase. I always thought that my photography wasn't good enough for a competition. I wanted to wait till I was a bit better at it to enter. So I always went there looking at the photographs and congradulationg my friends and other students at the college . 
So this year, I thought I was much better at the craft of Wet Plate Photography and decided to enter in a tintype I did this year. I orginally wanted to enter in the professional part for alternative process but missed the deadline by a few days, so I was left with doing the Student Showcase.   

Even though it was second place, I felt a little proud of second place. And congradulations to all my classmates that entered and won a place!  So after I saw my photo I went to enjoy the rest of the day and took only a couple of photos from the day! 

I admit, I haven't been posting as much as I want to on my site. I miss writing and expressing the photographs I take. 
I also have to admit, I'm starting to become obsessed with black and white photography.  Awhile back I went to a place in the mountains that had a bunch of vintage trains that still are in action! I was so inspired by the beauty of it all. Made me think of wanting to do Tintypes of them one day. 

Tempted to one day to do a whole month worth of photos in black and white. Anybody know any references on how to shoot black and white? Any blogs you can recommend? I would love to hear from you all!

11:19am – Dear bloggers, I have never sweated this much in my entire days of doing Photo shoots. The darkroom has no air conditioning, and there is little wind as well. My phone tells me its 101 degrees but it feels like 108.

3:17am- A couple of minutes after I typed in last time log entry, a supervisor came and kicked us off the property and so we drove around for a view hours and ended up at Salton City Beach and parked the bus. Upon arrival a car parked by us asked what we were up to and it turns out we met Buzzy Sullivan! Whom is a photographer and dabbles in wet plate as well and trained under the same person that Anton did! Small world. 

6:36am- Three hours later we are all drenched in sweat and exhaustion. Anton was kind and let me use one of his cameras take a tintype! I tried my best to use a camera that I haven’t seen or handled before, so I poured my collodion and dipped it into the silver then loaded it in the camera and expose the plate and took it back to the darkroom to open it up and I find that my plate disappeared! At first I was so confused on what happened then realized that the plate was to small for the holder and fell off in the camera. So attempt one, failed.
I went off exploring with Jocelyn for a little while and she was kind enough to let me photograph her! One of my summer goals is to work with people more and do more portraits, which is NOT one of my strong points as a photographer. Thank you Jocelyn!!! She also likes to do black and white film photography. 

Antons Photo Palace! 

All in all, It was a good day minus the heat and the sweat and never finding enough good bathrooms. I'm very thankful that I at least got one tintype from the trip and that I actually got up in morning to experience the Salton Sea. I'm not sure if I would ever come back to do tintypes in the summer.

So, this week on Tuesday, my class had an art opening at Southwestern College Student Art Gallery.  It was a total blast to put it together. It was also really neat to see my other classmates art work (which is AMAZING!) I took some photos of them putting up the work. 

And for those who are not able to make it to the show in general, this was the photograph I made specifically for the art show. Thank you to my model, Eden! 

As of lately, my studio has been under construction. For the longest time I have been wanting to build my own workbench to put my soon-to-be portable darkroom ( Thanks Nick! ) and to have a space to be able to work and store some tintypes that don't have a home yet. Building something this large is new to me, I may have some handle on tools, but not all. Overall, I'm excited to finish this and design how I want it to look in the end! So far it just took this weekend to complete this much.