I recently came across Christine Elfman’s Cabinet Card images when looking at the roster of photographers participating last year’s Photo Review Exhibition. Christine is an artist working in photography, fibers, and painting and is current working towards a Masters of Fine Arts in Photography at the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA. She holds a BFA from Cornell University, after which she lived in Rochester, NY while working with 19th century photographic processes. In Spring of 2008, Christine was in residence at the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts in Ithaca, NY and in 2010 she was awarded a Career Development Program Fellowship from The Center for Emerging Visual Artists. Her work has been exhibited nationally.

Her unique approach to the photographic medium is evident in the work featured below. He site has a number of interesting projects that include photography, painting, and constructed works. Much of the work looks at nature and the passage of time, and processes are an important element of the resulting images and works.

Images from Cabinet Cards / Storydress II
albumen prints from wet-plate collodion negatives, mounted on cabinet cards

Brooklyn NY
Cabinet Card #1, from the stony dress project
Albumen print from wet plate collodion negative
on antique card. Lifesize paper mache
and plaster sculpture, 6.5″x4.25″

Brooklyn NY
Cabinet Card #2, from the stony dress project
Albumen print from wet plate collodion negative
on antique card. Lifesize paper mache
and plaster sculpture, 6.5″x4.25″

Anthotype Dress
Phytolacca americana / Pokeweed
September 2009 – January 2011

The process:
Anthotype – A process suggested by Sir John Herschel in 1842 that used the colored extracts and tinctures of flowers and vegetables to sensitize paper. Objects such as leaves, lace, and other thin materials were placed in contact with the sensitized paper and exposed to sunlight. Anthotypes were not fixed or stabilized, making them impossible to display except in night albums, for evening viewing.

– Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, 2007

Images from Red and White