Sean Watson Photography

Happy new year

I just wanted to wish everyone a happy new year!

Add comment December 31st, 2008

I’m finally going to do it!

First off I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

I’m looking forward to 2009. 2008 was a really difficult year for SWP and I’m glad to be moving into 2009. Even though the economy is shaky to say the least, I am very positive that 2009 is going to be a great year for SWP. Weddings are booking, vendors are banning together to help everyone out and I’m looking forward to shooting some high school seniors this year. So if you know anyone who is going to be a high school senior next year send them my way. I’m currently looking for senior models and if they are hard workers they could get their photos for free!

Ok, now back to what I’m finally going to share. I’m finally going to post a couple photos from my native American shoot! If your just joining this blog let me fill you in. In June of 2007 my father was hired to photograph native Americans for an upcoming coffee table book. Now, my dad is not a professional photographer, meaning he does not make his living as a photographer but he has vast knowledge about the subject. One day he decided that he wanted to learn how the old photographers took pictures on a piece of glass. When I say “old photographers” I mean the very first photographers ever! A little fact for you guys…..The average lifespan of a photographer was 3 years back in those times. Simply because they all used mercury in their photo process! Crazy huh? Basically they just poisoned them selves till they died! This process was called “Wet Plate” or “Collodion” photography. My dads goal was to find other chemicals that could do the process that were a little less toxic. With some help he found a couple different mixtures that worked but settled on one……

Currently my dad is one of a handful in the world that knows how to do this process in the world! kinda cool huh?

Anyways, the process (I will try not to murder these steps, I’m going off memory here) is a little different and I will give some brief steps on how it works.

You get your portable little dark room set up with all your supplies in it.

You then get in and pick up a piece of cut 5X7 glass.

Poor the “special sauce” film on to the glass so you get a nice even coat on the whole thing.

Then insert the glass into the “film holder” and close it up so its light tight

Attach the film holder to the camera.

Pull the lens cap off the camera and count for your exposure.

Then take the film holder off and head back to your dark room

Develop the piece of glass and then you have a picture on a piece of glass!

The purpose of the book is to show what Native American clothing looked like back in those days and then I took a color photo to show what the clothing would look like present day. Since my Dad is really the only photographer west of the Mississippi that knows this process, they hired him. WOW that’s getting winded sorry and I will stop there and get to the show! If you want to know more about this process my dad has a little interview here.

Now for the photos! Oh and I am selling limited edition prints of these. Contact me for pricing info.

Add comment December 30th, 2008

I thought this was a little weird

I was just looking at my weekly website stats on Google. I always like to go into the map overlay and see what countries and cities have been looking at my website. I thought my #2 viewed country for this week was a little odd…. IRAQ?

Add comment December 21st, 2008

I can’t believe all this snow!

Wow, 30+ inches in 24 hours and my back is sore from shoveling! I’ve finally had some time to work on a couple more photos from Wallowa Lake and our trip back into Idaho.

6 days till Christmas.

Add comment December 19th, 2008

My Family

While I was in California I photographed my Aunts, Uncle and cousins. We decided on San Juan Capistrano for the location and below are a couple of my favorites.