“With four children at home, the youngest being just six-years-old, I worry about her and her future and the future of her children, if she decides to have any. We humans are amazing creatures, but we are also so plagued by our own ignorance and ego. When I was with Greta I found myself wanting to say, ‘These plates will be here hundreds and hundreds of years from now,’ but I stopped myself because Greta’s generation may not have another 50 years.”
You don't take a photograph, you make it.
Ansel Adams said that.
“You don't make a photograph just with a camera,” Adams also said. “You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”
©Shane Balkowitsch. Greta Thunberg, “Standing for Us All.”
For Shane Balkowitsch, the glass wet-plate collodion image maker from Bismarck, North Dakota whose nostalgia-steeped image of 17-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg graced the pages of Time magazine’s 2019 Person of the Year issue and now has pride of place in the Library of Congress, photography has become a life calling, even though he only picked up a camera in 2012.
Balkowitsch may have started late in life but from the beginning each one of his images now is a reflection of the pictures he has seen, the books he has read, the music he has heard and the people he has loved.
Balkowitsch was born and raised in the windswept flatlands of North Dakota, a metaphorical stone’s throw from the Standing Rock Sioux territory of pipeline protests and Kevin Costner westerns. He grew up steeped in the history and culture of America’s First Nations indigenous tribes: the Sioux are arguably the defining tribe of the Old World — geographically, culturally and quite literally located in America’s heartland.
Thunberg, from Sweden, was passing through,
an old soul in a child’s body, traversing the New World that has changed dramatically since that first buffalo hunt, eons ago.
In a wide-ranging interview by email, Balkowitsch talked about his early influences, his passions, and how he had just 20 minutes to set up and compose his now famous wet plate image of the teenage climate activist unknown a year ago outside her native Sweden but is today a household name around the world.
The two connected on one of those intangible, instinctive levels — the reluctant child climate activist and the photographer who came across his calling late in life.
Balkowitsch forged his reputation as an artist with his nostalgia-tinted glass portraits of the Native Americans who call the Dakotas home, and evolved from there to portraits of other artists, historical figures and local celebrities.
His glass wet plate portraits, with their echoes of Edward S. Curtis, have an eerie, otherworldly quality to them, and yet they, like their subjects, are clearly of this Earth.
©Shane Balkowitsch - Debra Anne Haaland, Congresswoman, New Mexico (D)
Adams again: “No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.”
Balkowitsch knew from the beginning, instinctively and without needing to be told, Adams’ other mantra: “A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.”
Balkowitsch learned early on that wet-plate collodion photography is a painstaking process that demands great skill. He worried that the 20 minutes he was allowed with Thunberg wouldn’t cut it — but, as so often happens with artistic inspiration, the imposed time limit had a way of focusing the mind. Thunberg and her father, Svante, proved willing and patient subjects, once they saw the potential of the results, and everything fell into place. It was as if it had been written.
In 1851, Frederick Scott Archer, an Englishman, discovered that collodion — a flammable, syrupy solution of pyroxylin found in ether and alcohol — could be used as an alternative to
egg white (albumen) on glass photographic plates. Collodion reduced the exposure time necessary for making an image — ironic, considering the time constraints Balkowitsch was operating under.
This method became known as the 'wet-plate collodion' method. Collodion was relatively grainless and colourless, and allowed for one of the earliest high-quality duplication processes in photography, which we know today as negatives.
“I never owned a camera before 2012,” Balkowitsch explains. “Sure I had a camera on my phone, but as far as taking a photograph with any sort of intent, that never happened until I took my first wet plate on Oct. 4th, 2012, a portrait of my brother Chad.
“I have no formal training, never took a class in photography, had no hands-on mentor, I just dove headfirst into this very archaic and difficult process, with no other photography background. I had never even seen film developed before. I saw a wet plate online, and I was immediately drawn to it. I don’t know how else to describe it. I was 44-years-old, had no artistic outlet whatsoever. I just started creating.”
©Shane Balkowitsch - Ernie Wayne LaPointe, Great Grandson of Sitting Bull. Curated at the Historical Society of South Dakota
As of today, Balkowitsch has made more than 3,400 plates. In 2019 alone, he made 400 plates, each one roughly 8’x10” in size.
At first, he was perceived as the nutty eccentric, working away in his studio using a time-consuming, long-since-forgotten photographic process while, outside, people were happily snapping selfies of themselves with smartphones. He became known by his Native American Hidatsa name, Maa’ishda tehxixi Agu’agshi — Shadow Catcher.
“I was just creating in the back corner of my warehouse where I work, no windows, just me, some chemicals and my camera. At first you can imagine I needed people to sit for me, so many of my initial photographs are of my family and friends. They were the ones who trusted me first. But then word-of-mouth got around to what I was doing. Photographers started to flock to my studio, wanting to see the process firsthand. I have never done any sort of advertising for my work or my studio. It is just one person telling another.”
That was then, this is now. He is presently fully booked for the next seven months, for his weekly Friday sessions. His images of descendants of the Sioux — including Sitting Bull’s great grandson — have been showcased in galleries and private collections across North America, but North Dakota is, and always will be, home.
He hosts college groups, other photographers, anyone interested in the collodion process.
“I have had as many as 40 people in my studio at one time witnessing the process first hand. It is very important for me to share the process, I want to prove that not only analog photography is still alive, but that wet plate should never have been abandoned in the 1880’s for something more convenient and simple.”
The past is another country now.
“At the time, I had no idea where I would be going with all this. I would never have dreamed that I would have original plates in 20 archives around the world, including the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery and the Library of Congress.
“I would have never guessed that I would publish a book on my body of work on my Native American friends. That I would be able to capture people like Greta Thunberg using my beloved process. Her plates have received more than two million likes on social media. There have been more than 75 articles written and published and distributed around the world through my work with her.”
Balkowitsch himself is interested in the present, be it the heavyweight boxer Evander Holyfield or Ernie LaPointe, great grandson of Sitting Bull.
©Shane Balkowitsch - Samuel Louis Seaboy
“When Evander Holyfield and Ernie LaPointe trusted me and came into my studio, it dawned on me that what is most important today is to capture real people who are here in the present day. Why pretend to take photographs of people in the past when in fact there are so many interesting people today who warrant a proper portrait? When I realized I could make history today, in the present, I stopped doing any sort of reenactment work.”
He’s not putting on a costume show, either.
“The biggest misconception I face on an almost weekly basis is that my friends are playing dress-up in my studio, that these are somehow costumes that were bought and we’re pretending.
“I never introduce any outfits or props into this important work. I want to keep the integrity of the series, and in order to do that, I introduce nothing into the shots. They bring it themselves, or it doesn’t get used. These are not costumes, this is their formal regalia. This their personal, traditional clothing and it must be respected for what it is. I never touch or pick up any clothing or item in my studio without first asking permission to do so. There are traditions that I’m learning, and I always do my best to respect such sacred items.
“I have thousands of followers all around the world, and there is this misconception that these may not be real Native Americans but actors of some sort. I have had people say, ‘I
thought real Native Americans were long gone.’ That simply is not the truth, and I hope my work proves that.
“I do not only capture Native Americans. I have many artistic shoots that I work on. I do large collaborations each year, but by far my most rewarding work is my work with my Native American brothers and sisters.”
His now famous portraits of Thunberg came together as part of his natural creative process, the unique perspective — and work routine — he brings to his craft.
“I had only 20 minutes with Greta. I was promised time for one portrait. After they saw the first image come to life, her father Svante said ‘Absolutely’ to a second portrait, which became the most iconic of the two, Standing For Us All.
“That image should never have happened. In fact, neither of the images would have happened if it were not for my friends down on the Standing Rock Reservation. They went to bat for me and gave me the opportunity. A relationship of trust I had been fostering for years came back around and opened the door for me, and I am so grateful.
“What I feel is magical about those images is the long exposure. Both wet plates required three seconds of exposure. All of that life, Greta’s life, is captured on the plate — her heartbeats, a shallow breath, a quick blink, all of that life is on the plate in pure silver on glass.
©Chad Nodland. Greta Thunberg watches Shane Balkowitsch as her silver-on-glass image comes to life.
“If you asked a film or digital photographer that they were going to be given 20 minutes with Greta to capture her image, and told them they could only take two exposures, they would tell you that you were crazy, but that is what I was up against.”
It worked.
“Standing For Us All is now at the Library of Congress, and the close-up Greta plate is with the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm, in her home country. A promise I made to her father when we were together was that I would not keep the original plates for myself but give them to appropriate archives.
“I feel really happy that I was able to pull this off for her and her legacy.
“As a kid growing up, we always knew we were doing damage to the environment. But we always had the feeling that it was a thousand years away before it would really do any damage. The Earth was simply so big, how could we possibly affect it? Well now we know that that timeframe has been moved up considerably. With four children at home, the youngest being just six-years-old, I worry about her and her future and the future of her children, if she decides to have any. We humans are amazing creatures, but we are also so plagued by our own ignorance and ego. When I was with Greta I found myself wanting to say, ‘These plates will be here
hundreds and hundreds of years from now,’ but I stopped myself because Greta’s generation may not have another 50 years. It is truly sad and gives me a new perspective. I am making works of art out of pure silver on glass that will last a thousand years, but humans may not be here to see them. That is a sobering thought.
I do not only capture Native Americans. I have many artistic shoots that I work on. I do large collaborations each year, but by far my most rewarding work is my work with my Native American brothers and sisters.”
Balkowitsch was drawn to Thunberg’s climate campaign out of concern for the future of his own children and the world it looks increasingly like they will inherit.
“The biggest frustration for me is ignorance and, to be frank, stupidity. Ninety-eight percent of all scientists around the globe are telling us that climate change is real and that we need to start listening. I think Greta is the lighting rod to get this done, but she is only one young girl. We need to all work together in whatever fashion necessary to start tackling this problem in earnest.
“Getting rid of plastic straws in the environment will do nothing. We must stop burning fossil fuels.”.
©Shane Balkowitsch