Atelier Contrastique is Moving!

I almost can’t believe it but my boyfriend and I will be moving into another house in the beginning of next year. Thus so will Contrastique. Besides that we’re going to have a fabulous kitchen (we love to cook and eat), a really nice garden with actual grass haha the house also has a truly magnificent basement. I didn’t think it was possible to find a house with an even nicer basement but we sure did! As is the case now my darkroom and studio will be made there. So…right now we’re cleaning things out and packing up the entire thing. Now I really realise just how much stuff I have gathered over the last couple of years, especially since I started woking with alternative processes haha…emptying the shelves and packing is A LOT of work 🙂

The basement is actually split in two parts: one separate part which forms the original basement and is already light-tight on its own will be housing my new darkroom. The ceiling is a little lower than I have now (2 metres instead of 2.20) but plenty of space to work, keep my chemistry (fridge), DR-papers and no more risk of flooding as it’s higher than the rest! As soon as the build and decorating starts I’ll post images of its progress. I am soooo looking forward to that!

When you stand with your back towards the entrance of the darkroom you look into the studio space. This is an ancient marl basement dating from the original farmer’s house that once was there from around the 1800’s. Our new house has been build on top of it when the farm was demolished. The former owner restored that basement, made it a 50 cm’s higher and placed a large window with doors in it (daylight studio aaaaahhhh though not towards the North, but hey; I’ll  happily deal with that 🙂 ). This is much higher and wider than our current basement and great for a studio. I already have the first assignment planned for 2014, a couple on collodion, so this will be fantastic! I also got asked to make images from racing/mtb bikes for a magazine à la my collodion-alternative-style, something I was already working on for my own, so this is great! I now have the space to get really creative with light and composition.

The basement also contains a toilet (very convenient), a small kitchen with a sink and a fridge so it’s more than perfect. I will also be using it as a office so I don’t have to do my administrative chores at the dining table, which was comfortable and cosy but also made it a mess with papers, cables and the like. This does mean that Contrastique will be closed for about two months before I have everything up and running again. But as my Silver Nitrate bath is shot anyway and due for extensive maintenance I can’t shoot any collodion plates now anyway.

I’m also in the process of planning a date for a dry plate collodion workshop by Jeroen de Wijs. It will be a three day course which covers all the aspects of dry plate negatives and salt printing. This is supposed to take place around March.

So….2014 is already full of beautiful, fun and exciting challenges and I am looking forward to it immensely! I wish you all the same kind of happiness and fortune for 2014!