This is a Spotlight article describing my photographic process from Black & White Magazine, Issue 126, April 2018. Written by Larry Lytle.
Spotlight: Mikael Carstanjen
The history of photography, its movements and treatment of subject matter is, for better or worse, tied to its technology. The long list of image-bearing inventions that shaped the look of photography’s first hundred years, also established the way we think about certain subject matter inhabiting those pioneering images. The allegiance to those bygone media are still with us, as are their visual tropes. This includes not only a 21st century drive to keep those darkroom processes alive—such as Daguerreotypes, tintypes, glass plate negatives, cyanotypes and so on—but also convert digital imagery into simulations of those 19th century media. It’s this latter approach, digital turned vintage, that photographer Mikael Carstanjen uses to create portraits.
Carstanjen’s images began as a way to honor those taking part in historical re-enactments. He explains, “My love for photography and history came together when I attended an American Revolutionary War reenactment in 2012. Each re-enactor, wearing authentic period clothing, takes on the persona of an individual who fought in that particular battle.” Carstanjen adds, “Profoundly moved by the experience, I wanted to have more than just snapshots from that day. Studying my photographs, I made a decision. My goal was to make digital images portray the men and battle in a medium that would have been available for that time in history.” To this end Carstanjen uses the freedom of digital image making to apply a simulacrum of the appropriate art media of that era. He continues, “My artwork from the Battle of Rock Harbor 1813 in Orleans, Massachusetts, is portrayed in digital watercolors. For the American Civil War, I developed a method for creating a digital tintype. Each image is printed to a film and then hand transferred onto the metal.”
These images carry us to another time in photography’s and our nation’s history. In this Carstanjen’s photographs pose an interesting and important question concerning our culture’s interpretation of photography and its presumed documentation of past events and people. His reconstructed tintypes are like a hall of mirrors, reflections within a reflection. The re-enactor’s who are replicating a point in history are being documented by way of a re-created process in photography’s history. This effect extends to the portraits taken at powwows: The Native Americans are photographed as they interact at the gathering, wearing the traditional clothes of their tribe. They are modern people photographed in the act of keep their customs and culture alive.
Carstanjen shoots candid photographs of them, likening his method of working to that of a street photographer. He carefully strips the portrait out of the background eliminating any reference to modernity and Photoshop’s the lone figure into one of his pre-photographed backgrounds; the appropriate filter is used to add boarders and texture; film, with this newly constructed portrait, is produced via inkjet printer and applied to a white-painted metal substrate; the end result is then coated with a clear sealer. Carstanjen’s method of making a digital tintype is as work-intensive and time-consuming as the original wet-plate process. This is, however, necessary if we are to take part in a process that reaches back into the past to re-present an event and its actors. By doing so, Carstanjen shares with us his interest in history.
With these re-created tintypes, Carstanjen has tapped into our innate drive to understand our place in the continuum of life. Leaving us to sort out its truth, which can only come if we confront and understand history with all of its consequences, good and bad. His photographs of battles fought long ago and of present-day native people reestablishing their heritage reminds us that history, is mostly written by the victors and that we are at times left with seeing it as a reflection within a reflection—a re-enactment of the past viewed through a modern camera, and presented via a replica of a vintage photographic technology.
—Larry Lytle