May 7, 2025 • 37 mins
Kate Waldera talks to Shane Balkowitsch about the process of wet plate photography.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to History Hot Dish, a casual conversation about the
historic people and events that give Bismarke it's unique flavor.
History Hot Dish is brought to you by the Bismarck
Historical Society, a local nonprofit whose mission is to learn, preserve,
and promote the history of Bismarck. Sit back, turn up
the volume and enjoy another helping of history Hot Dish.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, welcome to another episode of History Hot Dish. I'm
your host Kate Waldera, a member of the Bismarck Historical
Society's Board of Directors, and today our guest is Shane Bolkowitch,
a Bismarck wet Plate Colodian photographer. We will be just
dediscussing his work, as well as other notable photographers in
Bismarck who use the same historic process. Welcome Shane, Thank
(00:48):
you for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Thanks Kate, it's an honor being here.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Now, Shane, for our listeners, tell us a bit about yourself,
your background, and why you're interested in preserving and promoting
the mark's history.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Sure, I'm born and raised here in Bismarck. Nineteen sixty
nine January twenty fourth, nineteen sixty nine. I'm at the
Bismarck Hospital. I grew up here, my whole life went
to you know, Jeanette Meirie went to Walker, went to BHS,
and then a day after graduating from high school, I
went to California. I packed up everything that I owned,
put it in my sixty two Volkswagen Bug and went
(01:23):
to California for almost a decade, and then realized that
I didn't have any family out there, so I decided
to come back at the age of twenty eight and
became a nurse. At one point on college nurse. So
I was a charge nurse up at Medicenter one for
five years and from there became an entrepreneur. Started Balkoch
(01:47):
Enterprises with fifty dollars of my mom's basement in nineteen
ninety eight. Ran that company for twenty five years. Retired
two years ago this June. Sold it to a Canadian
firm and now I'm retired, and in the midst of
of that, I needed to find something else than profit
and loss statements. And back in twenty twelve, I ran
(02:08):
into a photograph online which was explained to me it
was a wet plate clothing photograph and understand I was
never a photographer. I didn't own a camera at the time.
So I saw this image. It drew me for some reason,
I say, it grabbed me by the throat. I asked
the took the picture online.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
What it was.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
He said it was a wet plate and I said, well,
I would just love to do that. And he said, well, Shane,
are you a photographer? I said, I don't own a camera.
His name was Paul, and he says, well, I've been
a photographer for twenty five years and I'm having a
difficult time with it. There's no way a non photographer
will ever figure out the wet plate clothing process on
their own. And within forty five days of that conversation,
on October four, twenty twelve, I made my first plate.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Well, I remember the program that you gave a number
of years ago at the public library. That whole process
just fascinated me. And I believe you're subject that night
was Bob Riderbusch. Yes, and I just thought that was
it was just so fascinating, the whole painstaking process of
doing it, and then how beautifully they turn out. I mean,
(03:12):
they're just you know, they're just gorgeous, and it's definitely
a lost art that deserved to be resurrected again.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Yeah, we should explain to the listeners that an ambrotype
I'm called an ambrotypist, which means eternal impression in Latin.
The final images are made out of pure silver and glass.
So these are these are objects. These aren't you know
JPEGs on a phone that we take pictures with every day.
This is this is something completely different. So these are objects.
(03:39):
I've made five thousand, over five four hundred of these
in the last you know, twelve years, and I have
plates at one hundred one museums around the world.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yes, I know, that's fantastic to share that with not
just keep it to yourself, but to share it with everyone.
And then your subject matter is always so interesting and
that too. We'll talk a little bit more about that
later in the interview. But some of our listeners might
not be familiar with this colodial process, the history and
how it differs from other types of photography.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Could you sure, Hawk, I'm actually teaching right now, so
I'm in my professor mode right now. I'm teaching up
at Bismarck State College the first web plate Clothing Photography
class obviously at that college, and it's something else. So
the gerettype was Louis the Gare in eighteen thirty eight
in the gerrettype process, and then Frederick Scott Archer in
(04:35):
eighteen fifty one figured out the web plate clothing photography process.
So what we do is we put a clothin which
is ether and guncotton. We put a bromide salt in that.
It's the brumide salt that attracts silver molecules out of
a silver night trade baths. We pour this coction on
the plate. We immerse it in a silver night trade
bath for three minutes ten percent silver night trade and
(04:56):
the molecules of silver attracted to the brumide in the
clothin At that point we have a photosensitive plate. We
take that plate to the camera, we do an exposure.
We should explain really quickly, these exposures are long exposures.
So before this podcast, I took a photograph of us
together and that was one sixtieth of a second. That aperture,
that hole in the camera is open for one sixtieth
(05:17):
of a second. If you come into my natural light
photography studio Nostalgic Glass wet plate Studio, we have ten
seconds of exposure, so it's six hundred times longer to
make a wet plate than it does with the modern camera.
So then we expose the plate, then we've got to
go back in the dark room. It's called wet plate
for a reason. If the plate dries for any reason,
we lose the image. So it's not like you can
(05:38):
go have a sandwich and come finish things after lunch.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
It's like dart the press started and you.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
Have to go through all the steps. Then we develop it,
and then we have to rinse it, and we have
to fix it, and then we have to dry it,
and we have eventually have to furnish it and label it.
So it's a it's an arduous process. But you know
a lot of modern day photography think that, you know,
there's got so many there's a lot of detriment to
it like that. It's very difficult to do. But I
(06:05):
don't know any other photographic process. So if all I've
ever known and this is all the only process, and
that's the only process I practice, I'm not interested in
any other kind of photography. If I if I could
not do web plating, I stopped tomorrow making pictures. If
it's all I know, there's no limitations. This is just
how you make pictures. And and I'm all completely self taught.
(06:27):
So I didn't read a book. I never you know,
I never took a class. I didn't have a mentor.
I was just just in my advance warehouse.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Just yep.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
You just studied it exposure, exposure, exposure, over twelve years.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Well, and what's so wonderful with this type of photography too,
is that, you know, the beauty in it is that
it is so unforgiving. You know, you've got one shot
at it and that's it. You know, with like the
picture you took with your phone, you can edit that
on photoshop. You can do all kinds of stuff to it.
You can manipulate it. What you see is what you
(07:03):
get with the other type of photography.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
We should mention you know that one shot Orlando Scott
Goff at eighteen eighty one had one shot here in Bismarck,
just about a mile from where we're sitting right now,
at the blockhouse across from Zimmerman's liquidation center. He had
one shot with Sitting Bull. So he paid Sitting Bull
fifty dollars. This was documented in the Bismarck Tribune. I
(07:27):
wrote with Loujffermel used to work up with the Historical Society.
We worked on two years. We worked on a document
on this man. And because I wanted it was not
only a photograph of sitting bowl here taken in Bismarck,
it was the first ever photograph taken of the man
in Bismarck. And it was taken in the web plate
clothing process. So I had driven by this building. I
(07:48):
did goosebumps just telling you this. Oh, I know, I've
driven by this building my whole life, right under his
kids in the eighties, dragging up and down Main Street.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Right.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
I no idea that sitting bowl, you know, fifty dollars
GoF gave him his equivalent about two thousand dollars in
today's money. Absolutely, And the story as reported by the
vismber Tribune, is that sitting Bull came in, sat in
the chair Orlando Scott Doff. It was a fifty two
second exposure and sitting Bull sat for his fifty two
seconds and he stood up and walked out the door.
(08:19):
So GoF had one shot at the first ever photograph.
And that's just amazing, I know. And then I think
another photograph that he took too was Chief Joseph. He
did yep, and I have cabinet cards, so both both
of those portraits. So I collected these cabinet cards, which
are very very rare, by the way, absolutely, and so
(08:40):
they are actually they are earmarked for the State Historical
Site in nor Dakota. So thick it's going to go
upon my death. There's items in my collection that are
all earmarked with little red stamps, and my daughter knows
that those have got to go protect the history. So
I just can't have he can't have some goth original works.
And I've got a nice collection of Goth's original and
(09:00):
you just can't have them just.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Language to the wind.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, languish or not be appreciated.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
That's what this is about. And disappear. That's what this
is about, is protecting history. And that's why these plates
and you know me giving all these plays, I give
my first eighteen hundred plates away, giving them away, they
have to go somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
They don't do me any good.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
When you make an object, well, you can't share.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
They aren't being shared with the world, you know, not
only that they're sitting in your studio.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Driving the last one thousand years. So you know, my
kids will get them, and then their kids will get them,
and then their kids. They may not know who I
am or care about who I was, but.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
They all know that this individual did this, did this work.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
And every plate is labeled properly on the back, I mean,
I have the date. And which is something that we
should talk about real quick, is that as far as
capturing history. If you look in and I've got a
large collection of ten types and the gheotypes in my
studio and none of them are labeled, like the photographers
of the day just did not take the time. And
there's never been one plate of the five thousand, four
hundred and some plates that I've made that has got
(10:00):
and out of my care without the date, the plate number,
the date of birth of the subject, the full name
of the subject and by Shane Balkwishness Well in a last.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
And as a former archivist in history, you know, in
an amateur historian, it is so important to label that
stuff because you know, in a generation or less it's lost.
You'll look at that and you'll say, well, who's the subject?
You know, and nothing to identify them? Who did it
nothing to identify that either. It's just something that was
(10:30):
done and it's just been lost.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
My lecture to my students next week is specifically about
labeling talking.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
I would rather have something labeled too much than not enough.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Absolutely, and it doesn't we shouldn't, you know. Even like
when my daughters make a piece of art, I require
them to. I say, you need to label that. If
you took the time to make it, you needed because
who knows the significance that will have at some point
in the future. Every object deserves.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
To be labeled, give the subject and yourself credit. Absolutely,
it absolutely is right. Well, and as you've alluded to,
you said that you were not professionally trained as a photographer,
but how and you did talk a little bit about
how you became interested in the what plate photography and
got started with it. Can you expand on that a
(11:18):
bit more?
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Yeah, so, I you know, as a non photographer, and
this is just like, oh, I just got to get
a camera and that I can send some film in somewhere.
I had to build a dark room, and I had
never been in a dark room. So here you're trying
to build what does a dark room require? Well, I
knew there was some special red lights. Obviously I've seen
that in movies. What kind of trays and glassware and
what do I all need in this dark room to
(11:41):
actually be able to process these hand plates, these handmade plates,
And so I had to learn all of that. And
it was just one exposure after another and one exposure
after another, and I was like, you know, last week,
it really occurred to me because my students have all
made two plates. Now that's part of their coursework, and
there actually made plates independently of me. And I look
(12:05):
at the plates that they made and I turned to
them and I said, it took me years to get
to this quality of work that you guys are putting
out in my studio hair And absolutely it was just
so beautiful to I mean, it was just so beautiful
to know that, you know, there could have been some
easier ways for me to have done this, but I
wouldn't change a thing.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Well, and there's and there's joy in just the process,
you know, of learning.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
And I was just chasing images. I just wanted to
get just something to show up on the on the
plate that actually looked like the.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
Person was just an apple core.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
It could be anything as long as the plate turned out,
I felt it was a success and then it wasn't
you know I I I joked about this, but it's
not really much of a joke. I want, I want
to say and to show, you know, because I wear
my heart on my sleeve, to show how naive I
was about photography. I think I was making photographs for
six months without even really realizing that I was using light,
(13:01):
like really using light that I could move the light
fixtures around and get changes. All I was doing was
fully light in the subject and just trying to get
something to appear on the light.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
That's all I still, you know, there was a real talent,
you know, when you're doing that, you know, to get
the right part of contrast the light and the dark
and how they play off of each other, and what
to high light and what to darken. You know, it's
it's all, you know, It's an aesthetic that you just
have to to learn.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Yeah, and everyone's got their own, you know, their own
their own look that they like. I kirishkiro is a
is a method of painting that the great masters used
to do. And it was seven eight years that I
was using a lot of darks, a lot of dark
backgrounds and a lot of shay shadows and stuff like that.
There's something about that to me. I always said that,
(13:49):
you know, if you take care of the darks, the
light will take care of itself. And usually photographers worry
about the light, but I was always worried about the dark.
And then someone pointed out this word to me, Hyrasciro,
and I've read the definition of this, and it was like,
that's what I found. I gravitated naturally towards this. Someone
(14:10):
hundreds of years ago described this word and made this
word and gave it the definition, And this whole time
I didn't know that's what I was practicing. And it's
just you know, you mentioned the word aesthetic. That's just
where I gravitate towards this, and that everyone has their
own their own mindset, but that's where I landed. And
who knew that there was a word that was describing
(14:30):
exactly And so you come in my dark right above
the sink. The definition of that word is right there
for everyone to see.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
And when you were putting together your studio and accumulating
all the different tools and supplies that you needed, how
difficult was it to get you know, those materials because
they're kind of identified with the process that nobody is
really practicing anymore. So was it difficult getting a hold
of those things?
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Yeah, well I had to have a camera made for me.
Star Camera Company made a camera for you wouldn't I
could have bought a historical camera, but then again silver
nitrate is caustic to wood, so you wouldn't. You know,
if you had a really nice old camera, you shouldn't
be putting it, especially as many white plates that I'm
putting through my camera. So my first camera that by
Star Camera Company, I was over at forty bram Lincoln
(15:18):
taking photographs over there and it fell apart on me
because of the silver night trate and I had to
have it remade. So so there was that the chemistry,
just like back in eighteen hundreds, you know when GoF
but you know he was ordering his chemistry from a
catalog as well. So there's a Bossic Insullivan as a
proprietor of chemistry. So I've always gotten my I'm I'm
(15:41):
more I want consistency.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Like for me, it's not about.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
All this chemistry and all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
For me, it's.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
Always a bit about the the the actual end product
the actual photograph. I don't if I have to do
jumping jack, stand on my hand during the exposure, you know,
stand on my hands, do whatever I need to to
get the shot. I don't care what I have to
show yet, as long as the end result is what
I get well.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
And like you say, you know, to use the same
kind of product, you get used to working with that
because they all, you know, they might behave similarly. But
I'm sure some of those chemicals react differently based on
the manufacture. So if you've got one that you like
and you use it and you're familiar with it, you're
going to get consistency.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
I take it one step further, so I don't I
use the same lens, so all my images are the
same girls I tests are lenses, so I've got different sizes,
but I use the same lens. So when my goal
is that when Kate sees just an image, it doesn't
even know it's mine, that you can recognize right away
that that's a Bulkowitch and that's you know, that was
that's like the goal. As soon as there's consistency, it's
(16:44):
no different than when a golfer. When I was when
I golf I've been using the same putter for over
twenty years. There's something about a tool in your hand
that if you don't change it, don't change the tool,
but eventually that becomes an extension of you. And that's
how I really feel perfect your use of it. And
it doesn't have to be the greatest quality lens. It
doesn't have to be the greatest quality chemistry.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
It just has to.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
Be what I get used to and it will improve
just on me just grinding it out, Like just grinding
and grinding and grinding and grinding, I will get something significant.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Well.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
A reminder for our guests that have just joined us.
You're listening to History Hot Dish on Radio Access one
O two point five FM. I'm your host, Kate Waldera,
and today our guest is Shane Balkowitch, a wet plate
photographer and longtime Bismarck resident. And today we're talking about
Shane's photography as well as other historic wet plate photographers
(17:40):
that we're in Bismarck. Getting to another topic is the
Northern Plains Native Americans a modern wet plate perspective. I
know the public library has all three volumes of your work,
and I believe that's the series your most well known
(18:00):
for those beautiful portraits Native Americans. Can you tell us
a bit more about that series and how you came
to start on that project.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
So, I was researching Orlando Scott Gough just fascinated with
this man that came before me. I knew he was
rather obscure, like a lot of people didn't know. And
that's why I went on that two year journey with
Low to write that peer review document for the State
Historical Society. And in that writing I found out that
there's a gentleman by the name of the Smithsonians. I
(18:32):
was reading an article about from the Smithsonian about this
gentleman called Ernie Lapointe and he was the great grandson
of Sitting Bowl, And I thought, Wow, wouldn't it be
cool if I could get the great grandson of Sitting
Bowl to come into Bismarck, North Dakota and to have
his portrait taken in the same process at Orlando's as
(18:53):
Orlando Scott Goff. And so I looked up Ernie the
point I found that he was in Leeds, South Dakota.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Called him up the phone.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Ernie picked up on the first ring.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
I rang picked up.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
The phone and I explained him, Ernie, my name is
Shane Balco, which obviously he didn't know who I was.
I said, I'm a wet plate clothing in photography. He
was familiar with the process because he was familiar that,
you know, was all the history of his grandfather, his
great grandfather. And I said, Orlando Scott Goff took a
photograph in eighteen eighty one here in Bismarck, Arth Dakota.
(19:25):
I would like to take your photograph in the same
city with the same process. And Ernie knew all about
the photograph. He knew all about it being the first photograph.
I wasn't telling Ernie anything he didn't know. He says,
I'll come up, and within about a week's time he
had entered my studio.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
That is so awesome.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
And you have to understand that I didn't have any
Native Americans in my life at that point.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Nothing.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
I didn't have a friend, didn't have acquaintance. Knew no
Native Americans at all. Ernie other point, the great grandson
a City Bowl, who has since been proven by DNA
to be the great grandson the Sydney Bowl, came into
my studio and it just started with him. So we
made we made some plates that day. It's significant this
(20:07):
this meeting of me and earning of the point, because
we made a plate called Eternal Field. So I took Ernie.
We were at my old studio, right out of the
old warehouse, with no windows or anything. I was just
working out of a black warehouse. So the great grandson
of the City Bowl walks in this warehouse.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
It's all dark.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
I mean, it was just there's boxes everywhere. It's just
you know, it's not it's not like the studio that you.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
And I are sitting in right now.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Absolutely, and but he trusted me, and I took him
outside on that day at the end of the day
and stood him out there facing that road that goes
up to the University of Mary and he sat in
the stood in the field with his arms crossed, and
I thought this, this would be great. But we had
the road behind him and the cars you'd see a
semi would drive by, and cars would drive by. And
(20:48):
he he recants his story, and it's funny. He says, well,
I didn't think you knew what you were doing, Shane,
because I heard all these cars behind me, and surely
you were going to, you know, capture one of these
cars in this picture, because I couldn't control the traffic obviously,
and I knew darn well that the process is so
slow as long as the cars were moving that they
would never be rendered right, So it'd have to be standing.
(21:08):
He's there perfectly still. I got this image of him standing.
It's very iconic image. And Uh, I thought it was
important to give Ernie the honor of naming that plate.
So he says, I don't. I don't have the name now, Shane,
let me I will, I will, They will cray over
(21:29):
it and I will come back to you.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
And then he came back.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
He says, we will call it Eternal Field. And what's
significant about Eternal Field? And I just went up just
about a month ago and was able to see Eternal
Field and they pulled it onto the archive and showed
it to me. So I haven't seen this plate in,
you know, in a decade. And what significant is that
was the plate that was the first ever played in
any museum here at the State Historical Site in North Dakota.
(21:55):
So the ladies up there, Emily and lindsay, UH decided that,
you know, we should take this in and they took
it into the archives.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
So of those one.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
Hundred and one other museums that I have around the world,
you know, they were the first, and that was the
first image. So everyone followed Ernie and then you know,
the plate got so much attention that that you know,
that State Historical Society, you know, we had a little
meeting and they said, well, what about what about a series?
And I was thinking, okay, I don't know any Native Americans.
(22:27):
So I thought, okay, we'll do a series of ten plates,
and we can get ten plates, we can have a
little series or something like that. And I you know,
Dakota who of Good House was number two out here
from United Tribes or professor out there, a very close
friend of mine, and he came in as a stranger, right,
So I had Ernie was my first Native American avenue
could go to Good House, follows him in, you know.
(22:47):
Some months later and after I shared the webplate of
the Coda Good House, it was just okay, we got
to ten, we'll do fifty, and then we got to fifty,
and then I would say I'll do one hundred, and
then when I got to one hundred, it's like, well
enough for this I'm going to say a thousand and
when I declared that, and this was a promise I
made to my friends. At this point, I knew I
(23:08):
was pushing myself out fifteen years that this process to
take a thousand portraits, and I didn't, you know, But
it's all trial, it's all it's all word of mouth,
it's all. They all just come in from all over.
Native Americans has come in as far as from Florida,
miss A Native American World came about flew in with
their dad and spent three days with me to get
(23:28):
a portrait taken from Florida. So so they people have
come in from all over the country. And then we
should talk really quickly about the fact that Northern Plains
Native Americans a modern web play perspective, the name really
doesn't apply to what I'm doing anymore because I'm shooting
you know, Native Americans from Washington State, in Arizona, and
you know, New Mexico and in Florida and and so.
(23:51):
But I always wanted to keep the name consistent because
it's just I just wanted to be all inclusive. So
there's no entry. As long as you're Native American, you
can be part of this, so there was I'm just
trying to be as you know, inclusive as I as
I possibly can. So if anyone who's Native American wants
to come in that they come in from Michigan and
Minnesota and come in from Canada, so it's it's quite
(24:14):
the honor.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
So I will.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
You know, the name's kind of stuck even though it
doesn't really apply anymore. And people has asked me, well,
why is it called Northern Plains because you're taking pictures
of people from all over and it's because it was
it was a hubble beginning. And how could I have
when you when you're planning on ten portraits, how do
you know you've got to have a name for those
ten portraits? How could you ever have guessed that this
(24:37):
is where I'd find myself? Right, So so in a way,
I just keep honoring those first people that trusted.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Me absolutely, and you know, and what a beautiful honor
for them. You know, their rich heritage is being remembered
in like you said, it's just no longer than Northern Plains,
but it's branched out to include all those indigenous people. Yes,
I have you had anyone say from like Alaska.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Yep at all yep from Alaska, had had one indigenous
person from New Zealand, had one indigenous person from Mexico.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
So yeah, it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
It just stick spans and expands.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
It had an Inuit Native America not too long ago
as well, so yeah, it just it's all. But it's
all word of mouth. People think that I'm average. All.
I share the work and then the people in the photographs.
Every week I share the work that I do. I
booked out for seven months for my Friday sessions, so
every week, you know, I do the pictures, I share
it with the people that were in the picture, and
(25:41):
then they share it and the next thing, you know,
I'm just inundated with and then you get more people,
just keep any more people. So it's all just been osmosis,
really and it's it's really a fabulous way. We didn't
have a game plan.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Well, and sometimes good things happen from not planning it
too much. Yeah, then it's a little more spontaneous. Yeah,
and you know that's just amazing to me. And I
know I've looked at those books at the library and
I could just spend hours looking at those beautiful photographs.
You know, A wonderful way to pay tribute to that
(26:15):
beautiful culture.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (26:18):
Well, the other.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Famous wet plate photographers like Orlando's got golf and I
believe at one time partner of GoF was D. F. Berry.
They worked in Bismarck. What can you tell me about
them and how they're working has inspired you?
Speaker 4 (26:36):
Well, obviously Orlando Scott Goff in his portrait of sitting
bowl is really important DF Berry. He ended up believing.
I actually have an original business card of D. F.
Berry's in my studio that I have marked for the
Historical Society. So these these frontier photographers, this was this
was their thing that they would They would take these
photographs and then send them back you know east, And
(26:58):
this is why you know these historic images are you know,
so people do. It just became part of the psyche
of as these frontier photographers were taking moving west. They
were taking these photographs and sending them back.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
So and they just didn't sit in their studio here
in Bismarck.
Speaker 5 (27:17):
They traveled.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
They were traveling you go to their subjects because many
times there are subjects could not come to them.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Edward Curtis was another one who's really inspired me. He's
not from you know, North Dakota, but you know he
photographed in the early nineteen hundreds. You know their claims
of thirty thousand plates being made over a thirty year period,
and you know, he had lost his studios financially in
a divorce and all kinds of things and plates were
(27:46):
broken and all kinds of things, and he was found,
you know, many years after his His work was identified
many years after he was gone, and some of the
most significant Native American he was doing dry plates, which
is a different pross that's a little bit more simple
than mine. He could actually buy his plates directly from
Kodak Eastman, just take him out of the box and
load him in his camera and take photographs, so he
(28:07):
could Orlando Scott goff in the Bismarck Tribune, again, if
I can share this, is that in about eighteen eighty
five they came up with the dry plate process. And
these are approximate dates, but around eighteen eighty five the
wet plate fell out of favor because the photographers could
now buy these plates had already had the silver on them,
and they could just expose them. And golf In the
(28:28):
Bismarck Tribune was interviewed and said he was astounded that
he was able to make over eighty plates in one afternoon,
and he was just blown away because when I work
eight hours on a Friday, I make row five or
six plates.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
So you know, you can about imagine.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
So they quickly abandoned the wet plate process in eighteen
eighty five because they didn't need a dark room. So
GoF could take his plates and Edward Curtis could take
his plates out in the field right, a whole bunch
of these plates.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Whereas with web plate the people had to come to them,
so you.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Had to make that.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
He actually making the plates in the field, so it's
a it's a totally different thing. So he could take
You could take a hundred plates out and then go
and take a hundred exposures. Don't worry about them at all.
You could come back and develop them. Edward Curtis could
develop them weeks later, and he had no idea what
he had. He was just out in the field loading plates,
taking exposures, putting them away, and then weeks later keeping
them in the dark weeks later going back to his
(29:23):
dark room. And many times Edward Curtis would just go
back to his tent and develop them there that that
night to see how he had. But the point was
is that photography became much more simple and the photographer
was freed up from a dark room. When I went
down and took a photograph of Greta Tumberg out at
Standing Rock called Standing for Us all, you know, I
(29:45):
had to have my dark room with me, like I'm
working in the field with this dark room. So it's
a it's a Dante tesk. When I just went up
and photographed Leondard peril Tyer up at Chippean Nation, you know,
there was a dark room that had to be there.
And Leonard spent four hours when they promised me too,
and spent four hours with me at eighty years of
age and being these seven plates.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
And it was amazing.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
I remember, you know, we were six plates in and
then we had time for one more, one more plate.
And I said, well, Leonard, what would you like to do?
And he says, and he sat in his chair and
he wanted to put his his fist up to his chests.
And I said, well, Leonard, that's what we're going to do.
And Leonard sat in the chair and and you know
that plate, you know, that plate went to.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
A museum as well.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
So it's these little moments, but it's always My Native
American work is always a collaboration. So it should be
said here as and I want to put it on
the record. Is that, and I've said this many times,
is that I never introduce anything into my portraits of
my Native American series. Now, I've got creative work that
I do, all kinds of creative work, but if it's
Northern Plains Native Americans, I've never introduced a prop. I've
(30:52):
never introduced an article, clothing, a sash, and I have
all these things in my my studios, gifts that have
been given and every once in a while it hasn't
happened in a while, but a Native American will be
in my change room and they'll grab something and put
it on, and they'll come out and I quickly have
to identify that boy, that's mine. I have to take
that off of you, with all due respect, because I
(31:12):
don't want to.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
I'm not dressing up Native Americans. They either bring it
or they or we.
Speaker 5 (31:18):
Don't use natives as they are in regalia.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
And I think I've lost a lot of sitters because
people see these these beautiful images of these Native Americans
in their in they're fine regalia, and they think that
that's required and it's absolutely not.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
Is there a choice.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
If they choose to come with it, wonderful, and if
they choose not to.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
That perfectly well too. I've I've photographed a Native American
surgeon with this surgeon cap on and a young boy
with his baseball cap on. I mean, this is not
It's called a modern web play perspective for a reason.
I can easily put these Native Americans back in the
eighteen hundreds if if I'm careful. But it's not a requirement.
(31:56):
It's just we're just tipping our hats. And I always
it's kind of fun to play with that a little bit.
Like I had a Native American boxer come in and
you know, he sat in the chair and we hung
his modern day boxing gloves off the back of the chair.
So if you look at the plate, it's got you know,
if you're not paying attention, you just see this Native
American sitting there, But if you look closely, you see
(32:16):
these modern day gloves and it kind of tips its
hat to the modern day and I and I like
doing that kind of that.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Kind of it just transcends time.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
I'm not trying.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
I'm not trying to pretend I'm not.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
I have no intention.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
They set They set the tone when you when you.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Ask them, well, what would you like to wear, They're
going to wear.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
Like if you ask me what I want, I'm going
to put a suit on. If I had a formal
portrait session, I'm going to put a suit on. They
this is this, and this is so much more than
a suit like this is this is this is religious clothing.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
Absolutely, it's not it's not the same. Yeah, it's not
a shop.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
It's something that's very important. It's very much a part
of their culture and it has a meaning to them.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
I've been accused on a couple of okays where people
have said that this and the quote was on one
of the occasions was that you could not have possibly
taken that in modern day like they've accused me of
taking historical images and calling them my own, like stealing
them from someone else. And then what I do is
I just show them the iPhone picture of me with
(33:19):
my arm around the subject or something like that, or
some kind of behind the scene image which I'm meticulous
and Chad Nodland here in Bismarck. He's my digital photography
with my studio. If it's a big shoot, like he
went all the way up there with Leonard, I mean
that was a big date, right, Like not only do
I have to get the plates of Leonards for the
six museums that they went to, I had to document
(33:39):
that what we did that day, Like it's very important
that it shows that I made these images on this
day and here it is.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
There's proof to this.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
So there's no question, and there never should be a question,
but there are always.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Are allway were going to especially with artificial intelligence these
days and the way that people are just generating images
just based off I just had a talk last week
with my students, a whole lecture on the ugliness of
that technology and that there's no historical aspect or no
historical merit whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Because it's artificial that never happened.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
It never happen, you never used. It's not a photograph.
I may people are getting sick of me. I'm champion
in this cause, but I have no choice, Like I
really love photography like this, so then.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
It really it just it just you know, for the
lack of a better word, it just muddies that water.
You know, of beautiful natural photography, that one snapshot in
time that will never ever be created again, versus something
that can just be mass produced. You know, there is
a big difference, and it can.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Be deceiving, right, it can be deceiving.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
You can put John Lennon on the top of a
building with Martin Luther King shaking hands, and that damn
photo excuse my language, can get out in the wild
fifty years from now. It's real because they don't know
anything or they have no concept that those two men
never met on that building, or that.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
There was impossible for that to have happened. Right, Well, Shane,
I just want to thank you so much for coming
into the studio today and talking to us about your photography,
as well as sharing your thoughts on the work of
other historic wet plate photographers here in Bismarck. And if
our audience wants to find out more information about your work,
(35:30):
where can they explore that?
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Yeah, if they just go to www dot nostalgiaclass wetplatestudio
dot com. It's rather long, but they can find me there,
or you can just do I have a Wikipedia. There's
a Wikipedia page about me, so you can find me there,
and just on Google you can just type in my
name Shane Balkowitch and it will It'll bring up all
my work and what I've been working on so diligently.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
I've probably got.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
Maybe a couple more years to get to my thousand,
my goal of one thousand Native American portraits.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
So I'm just every week just.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
I'm looking forward to volume four. Yeah, I know, Volume
three just came out last year, I believe. Yeah, so
get started on number.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Four and people ask me, are you going to stop
at a thousand? I have no I will take Native
American portraits for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
But it was the thousand.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
The number one thousand was a promise that I had
made to my you know, to my friends, so I
don't want to let them down.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Well.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Absolutely, Well, again, thank you for this fascinating discussion on
this historic photography technique. I've learned a lot and I
just can't say it enough. Thank you for your time today.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
It's an honor.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Kay Okay, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Thank you for listening to History Hot Dish.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
If you like what you heard.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
That is Mark Historical Society host programs and events throughout
the year. We welcome all those with an interest in
local history to join us. For more information about programs
or membership, our website Bismarkhistory dot org, or find us
on Facebook. You can find History Hot Dish on one
o two point five FM, Radioaccess dot org, and anywhere
you find great podcasts. History Hot Dish is produced by
(37:16):
the Bismarck Historical Society in partnership with Dakota Media Access
Welcome to History Hot Dish, a casual conversation about the
historic people and events that give Bismarke it's unique flavor.
History Hot Dish is brought to you by the Bismarck
Historical Society, a local nonprofit whose mission is to learn, preserve,
and promote the history of Bismarck. Sit back, turn up
the volume and enjoy another helping of history Hot Dish.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, welcome to another episode of History Hot Dish. I'm
your host Kate Waldera, a member of the Bismarck Historical
Society's Board of Directors, and today our guest is Shane Bolkowitch,
a Bismarck wet Plate Colodian photographer. We will be just
dediscussing his work, as well as other notable photographers in
Bismarck who use the same historic process. Welcome Shane, Thank
(00:48):
you for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Thanks Kate, it's an honor being here.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Now, Shane, for our listeners, tell us a bit about yourself,
your background, and why you're interested in preserving and promoting
the mark's history.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Sure, I'm born and raised here in Bismarck. Nineteen sixty
nine January twenty fourth, nineteen sixty nine. I'm at the
Bismarck Hospital. I grew up here, my whole life went
to you know, Jeanette Meirie went to Walker, went to BHS,
and then a day after graduating from high school, I
went to California. I packed up everything that I owned,
put it in my sixty two Volkswagen Bug and went
(01:23):
to California for almost a decade, and then realized that
I didn't have any family out there, so I decided
to come back at the age of twenty eight and
became a nurse. At one point on college nurse. So
I was a charge nurse up at Medicenter one for
five years and from there became an entrepreneur. Started Balkoch
(01:47):
Enterprises with fifty dollars of my mom's basement in nineteen
ninety eight. Ran that company for twenty five years. Retired
two years ago this June. Sold it to a Canadian
firm and now I'm retired, and in the midst of
of that, I needed to find something else than profit
and loss statements. And back in twenty twelve, I ran
(02:08):
into a photograph online which was explained to me it
was a wet plate clothing photograph and understand I was
never a photographer. I didn't own a camera at the time.
So I saw this image. It drew me for some reason,
I say, it grabbed me by the throat. I asked
the took the picture online.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
What it was.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
He said it was a wet plate and I said, well,
I would just love to do that. And he said, well, Shane,
are you a photographer? I said, I don't own a camera.
His name was Paul, and he says, well, I've been
a photographer for twenty five years and I'm having a
difficult time with it. There's no way a non photographer
will ever figure out the wet plate clothing process on
their own. And within forty five days of that conversation,
on October four, twenty twelve, I made my first plate.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Well, I remember the program that you gave a number
of years ago at the public library. That whole process
just fascinated me. And I believe you're subject that night
was Bob Riderbusch. Yes, and I just thought that was
it was just so fascinating, the whole painstaking process of
doing it, and then how beautifully they turn out. I mean,
(03:12):
they're just you know, they're just gorgeous, and it's definitely
a lost art that deserved to be resurrected again.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Yeah, we should explain to the listeners that an ambrotype
I'm called an ambrotypist, which means eternal impression in Latin.
The final images are made out of pure silver and glass.
So these are these are objects. These aren't you know
JPEGs on a phone that we take pictures with every day.
This is this is something completely different. So these are objects.
(03:39):
I've made five thousand, over five four hundred of these
in the last you know, twelve years, and I have
plates at one hundred one museums around the world.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yes, I know, that's fantastic to share that with not
just keep it to yourself, but to share it with everyone.
And then your subject matter is always so interesting and
that too. We'll talk a little bit more about that
later in the interview. But some of our listeners might
not be familiar with this colodial process, the history and
how it differs from other types of photography.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Could you sure, Hawk, I'm actually teaching right now, so
I'm in my professor mode right now. I'm teaching up
at Bismarck State College the first web plate Clothing Photography
class obviously at that college, and it's something else. So
the gerettype was Louis the Gare in eighteen thirty eight
in the gerrettype process, and then Frederick Scott Archer in
(04:35):
eighteen fifty one figured out the web plate clothing photography process.
So what we do is we put a clothin which
is ether and guncotton. We put a bromide salt in that.
It's the brumide salt that attracts silver molecules out of
a silver night trade baths. We pour this coction on
the plate. We immerse it in a silver night trade
bath for three minutes ten percent silver night trade and
(04:56):
the molecules of silver attracted to the brumide in the
clothin At that point we have a photosensitive plate. We
take that plate to the camera, we do an exposure.
We should explain really quickly, these exposures are long exposures.
So before this podcast, I took a photograph of us
together and that was one sixtieth of a second. That aperture,
that hole in the camera is open for one sixtieth
(05:17):
of a second. If you come into my natural light
photography studio Nostalgic Glass wet plate Studio, we have ten
seconds of exposure, so it's six hundred times longer to
make a wet plate than it does with the modern camera.
So then we expose the plate, then we've got to
go back in the dark room. It's called wet plate
for a reason. If the plate dries for any reason,
we lose the image. So it's not like you can
(05:38):
go have a sandwich and come finish things after lunch.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
It's like dart the press started and you.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
Have to go through all the steps. Then we develop it,
and then we have to rinse it, and we have
to fix it, and then we have to dry it,
and we have eventually have to furnish it and label it.
So it's a it's an arduous process. But you know
a lot of modern day photography think that, you know,
there's got so many there's a lot of detriment to
it like that. It's very difficult to do. But I
(06:05):
don't know any other photographic process. So if all I've
ever known and this is all the only process, and
that's the only process I practice, I'm not interested in
any other kind of photography. If I if I could
not do web plating, I stopped tomorrow making pictures. If
it's all I know, there's no limitations. This is just
how you make pictures. And and I'm all completely self taught.
(06:27):
So I didn't read a book. I never you know,
I never took a class. I didn't have a mentor.
I was just just in my advance warehouse.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Just yep.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
You just studied it exposure, exposure, exposure, over twelve years.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Well, and what's so wonderful with this type of photography too,
is that, you know, the beauty in it is that
it is so unforgiving. You know, you've got one shot
at it and that's it. You know, with like the
picture you took with your phone, you can edit that
on photoshop. You can do all kinds of stuff to it.
You can manipulate it. What you see is what you
(07:03):
get with the other type of photography.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
We should mention you know that one shot Orlando Scott
Goff at eighteen eighty one had one shot here in Bismarck,
just about a mile from where we're sitting right now,
at the blockhouse across from Zimmerman's liquidation center. He had
one shot with Sitting Bull. So he paid Sitting Bull
fifty dollars. This was documented in the Bismarck Tribune. I
(07:27):
wrote with Loujffermel used to work up with the Historical Society.
We worked on two years. We worked on a document
on this man. And because I wanted it was not
only a photograph of sitting bowl here taken in Bismarck,
it was the first ever photograph taken of the man
in Bismarck. And it was taken in the web plate
clothing process. So I had driven by this building. I
(07:48):
did goosebumps just telling you this. Oh, I know, I've
driven by this building my whole life, right under his
kids in the eighties, dragging up and down Main Street.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Right.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
I no idea that sitting bowl, you know, fifty dollars
GoF gave him his equivalent about two thousand dollars in
today's money. Absolutely, And the story as reported by the
vismber Tribune, is that sitting Bull came in, sat in
the chair Orlando Scott Doff. It was a fifty two
second exposure and sitting Bull sat for his fifty two
seconds and he stood up and walked out the door.
(08:19):
So GoF had one shot at the first ever photograph.
And that's just amazing, I know. And then I think
another photograph that he took too was Chief Joseph. He
did yep, and I have cabinet cards, so both both
of those portraits. So I collected these cabinet cards, which
are very very rare, by the way, absolutely, and so
(08:40):
they are actually they are earmarked for the State Historical
Site in nor Dakota. So thick it's going to go
upon my death. There's items in my collection that are
all earmarked with little red stamps, and my daughter knows
that those have got to go protect the history. So
I just can't have he can't have some goth original works.
And I've got a nice collection of Goth's original and
(09:00):
you just can't have them just.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Language to the wind.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, languish or not be appreciated.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
That's what this is about. And disappear. That's what this
is about, is protecting history. And that's why these plates
and you know me giving all these plays, I give
my first eighteen hundred plates away, giving them away, they
have to go somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
They don't do me any good.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
When you make an object, well, you can't share.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
They aren't being shared with the world, you know, not
only that they're sitting in your studio.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Driving the last one thousand years. So you know, my
kids will get them, and then their kids will get them,
and then their kids. They may not know who I
am or care about who I was, but.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
They all know that this individual did this, did this work.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
And every plate is labeled properly on the back, I mean,
I have the date. And which is something that we
should talk about real quick, is that as far as
capturing history. If you look in and I've got a
large collection of ten types and the gheotypes in my
studio and none of them are labeled, like the photographers
of the day just did not take the time. And
there's never been one plate of the five thousand, four
hundred and some plates that I've made that has got
(10:00):
and out of my care without the date, the plate number,
the date of birth of the subject, the full name
of the subject and by Shane Balkwishness Well in a last.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
And as a former archivist in history, you know, in
an amateur historian, it is so important to label that
stuff because you know, in a generation or less it's lost.
You'll look at that and you'll say, well, who's the subject?
You know, and nothing to identify them? Who did it
nothing to identify that either. It's just something that was
(10:30):
done and it's just been lost.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
My lecture to my students next week is specifically about
labeling talking.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
I would rather have something labeled too much than not enough.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Absolutely, and it doesn't we shouldn't, you know. Even like
when my daughters make a piece of art, I require
them to. I say, you need to label that. If
you took the time to make it, you needed because
who knows the significance that will have at some point
in the future. Every object deserves.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
To be labeled, give the subject and yourself credit. Absolutely,
it absolutely is right. Well, and as you've alluded to,
you said that you were not professionally trained as a photographer,
but how and you did talk a little bit about
how you became interested in the what plate photography and
got started with it. Can you expand on that a
(11:18):
bit more?
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Yeah, so, I you know, as a non photographer, and
this is just like, oh, I just got to get
a camera and that I can send some film in somewhere.
I had to build a dark room, and I had
never been in a dark room. So here you're trying
to build what does a dark room require? Well, I
knew there was some special red lights. Obviously I've seen
that in movies. What kind of trays and glassware and
what do I all need in this dark room to
(11:41):
actually be able to process these hand plates, these handmade plates,
And so I had to learn all of that. And
it was just one exposure after another and one exposure
after another, and I was like, you know, last week,
it really occurred to me because my students have all
made two plates. Now that's part of their coursework, and
there actually made plates independently of me. And I look
(12:05):
at the plates that they made and I turned to
them and I said, it took me years to get
to this quality of work that you guys are putting
out in my studio hair And absolutely it was just
so beautiful to I mean, it was just so beautiful
to know that, you know, there could have been some
easier ways for me to have done this, but I
wouldn't change a thing.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Well, and there's and there's joy in just the process,
you know, of learning.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
And I was just chasing images. I just wanted to
get just something to show up on the on the
plate that actually looked like the.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
Person was just an apple core.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
It could be anything as long as the plate turned out,
I felt it was a success and then it wasn't
you know I I I joked about this, but it's
not really much of a joke. I want, I want
to say and to show, you know, because I wear
my heart on my sleeve, to show how naive I
was about photography. I think I was making photographs for
six months without even really realizing that I was using light,
(13:01):
like really using light that I could move the light
fixtures around and get changes. All I was doing was
fully light in the subject and just trying to get
something to appear on the light.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
That's all I still, you know, there was a real talent,
you know, when you're doing that, you know, to get
the right part of contrast the light and the dark
and how they play off of each other, and what
to high light and what to darken. You know, it's
it's all, you know, It's an aesthetic that you just
have to to learn.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Yeah, and everyone's got their own, you know, their own
their own look that they like. I kirishkiro is a
is a method of painting that the great masters used
to do. And it was seven eight years that I
was using a lot of darks, a lot of dark
backgrounds and a lot of shay shadows and stuff like that.
There's something about that to me. I always said that,
(13:49):
you know, if you take care of the darks, the
light will take care of itself. And usually photographers worry
about the light, but I was always worried about the dark.
And then someone pointed out this word to me, Hyrasciro,
and I've read the definition of this, and it was like,
that's what I found. I gravitated naturally towards this. Someone
(14:10):
hundreds of years ago described this word and made this
word and gave it the definition, And this whole time
I didn't know that's what I was practicing. And it's
just you know, you mentioned the word aesthetic. That's just
where I gravitate towards this, and that everyone has their
own their own mindset, but that's where I landed. And
who knew that there was a word that was describing
(14:30):
exactly And so you come in my dark right above
the sink. The definition of that word is right there
for everyone to see.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
And when you were putting together your studio and accumulating
all the different tools and supplies that you needed, how
difficult was it to get you know, those materials because
they're kind of identified with the process that nobody is
really practicing anymore. So was it difficult getting a hold
of those things?
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Yeah, well I had to have a camera made for me.
Star Camera Company made a camera for you wouldn't I
could have bought a historical camera, but then again silver
nitrate is caustic to wood, so you wouldn't. You know,
if you had a really nice old camera, you shouldn't
be putting it, especially as many white plates that I'm
putting through my camera. So my first camera that by
Star Camera Company, I was over at forty bram Lincoln
(15:18):
taking photographs over there and it fell apart on me
because of the silver night trate and I had to
have it remade. So so there was that the chemistry,
just like back in eighteen hundreds, you know when GoF
but you know he was ordering his chemistry from a
catalog as well. So there's a Bossic Insullivan as a
proprietor of chemistry. So I've always gotten my I'm I'm
(15:41):
more I want consistency.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Like for me, it's not about.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
All this chemistry and all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
For me, it's.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
Always a bit about the the the actual end product
the actual photograph. I don't if I have to do
jumping jack, stand on my hand during the exposure, you know,
stand on my hands, do whatever I need to to
get the shot. I don't care what I have to
show yet, as long as the end result is what
I get well.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
And like you say, you know, to use the same
kind of product, you get used to working with that
because they all, you know, they might behave similarly. But
I'm sure some of those chemicals react differently based on
the manufacture. So if you've got one that you like
and you use it and you're familiar with it, you're
going to get consistency.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
I take it one step further, so I don't I
use the same lens, so all my images are the
same girls I tests are lenses, so I've got different sizes,
but I use the same lens. So when my goal
is that when Kate sees just an image, it doesn't
even know it's mine, that you can recognize right away
that that's a Bulkowitch and that's you know, that was
that's like the goal. As soon as there's consistency, it's
(16:44):
no different than when a golfer. When I was when
I golf I've been using the same putter for over
twenty years. There's something about a tool in your hand
that if you don't change it, don't change the tool,
but eventually that becomes an extension of you. And that's
how I really feel perfect your use of it. And
it doesn't have to be the greatest quality lens. It
doesn't have to be the greatest quality chemistry.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
It just has to.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
Be what I get used to and it will improve
just on me just grinding it out, Like just grinding
and grinding and grinding and grinding, I will get something significant.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Well.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
A reminder for our guests that have just joined us.
You're listening to History Hot Dish on Radio Access one
O two point five FM. I'm your host, Kate Waldera,
and today our guest is Shane Balkowitch, a wet plate
photographer and longtime Bismarck resident. And today we're talking about
Shane's photography as well as other historic wet plate photographers
(17:40):
that we're in Bismarck. Getting to another topic is the
Northern Plains Native Americans a modern wet plate perspective. I
know the public library has all three volumes of your work,
and I believe that's the series your most well known
(18:00):
for those beautiful portraits Native Americans. Can you tell us
a bit more about that series and how you came
to start on that project.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
So, I was researching Orlando Scott Gough just fascinated with
this man that came before me. I knew he was
rather obscure, like a lot of people didn't know. And
that's why I went on that two year journey with
Low to write that peer review document for the State
Historical Society. And in that writing I found out that
there's a gentleman by the name of the Smithsonians. I
(18:32):
was reading an article about from the Smithsonian about this
gentleman called Ernie Lapointe and he was the great grandson
of Sitting Bowl, And I thought, Wow, wouldn't it be
cool if I could get the great grandson of Sitting
Bowl to come into Bismarck, North Dakota and to have
his portrait taken in the same process at Orlando's as
(18:53):
Orlando Scott Goff. And so I looked up Ernie the
point I found that he was in Leeds, South Dakota.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Called him up the phone.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Ernie picked up on the first ring.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
I rang picked up.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
The phone and I explained him, Ernie, my name is
Shane Balco, which obviously he didn't know who I was.
I said, I'm a wet plate clothing in photography. He
was familiar with the process because he was familiar that,
you know, was all the history of his grandfather, his
great grandfather. And I said, Orlando Scott Goff took a
photograph in eighteen eighty one here in Bismarck, Arth Dakota.
(19:25):
I would like to take your photograph in the same
city with the same process. And Ernie knew all about
the photograph. He knew all about it being the first photograph.
I wasn't telling Ernie anything he didn't know. He says,
I'll come up, and within about a week's time he
had entered my studio.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
That is so awesome.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
And you have to understand that I didn't have any
Native Americans in my life at that point.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Nothing.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
I didn't have a friend, didn't have acquaintance. Knew no
Native Americans at all. Ernie other point, the great grandson
a City Bowl, who has since been proven by DNA
to be the great grandson the Sydney Bowl, came into
my studio and it just started with him. So we
made we made some plates that day. It's significant this
(20:07):
this meeting of me and earning of the point, because
we made a plate called Eternal Field. So I took Ernie.
We were at my old studio, right out of the
old warehouse, with no windows or anything. I was just
working out of a black warehouse. So the great grandson
of the City Bowl walks in this warehouse.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
It's all dark.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
I mean, it was just there's boxes everywhere. It's just
you know, it's not it's not like the studio that you.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
And I are sitting in right now.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Absolutely, and but he trusted me, and I took him
outside on that day at the end of the day
and stood him out there facing that road that goes
up to the University of Mary and he sat in
the stood in the field with his arms crossed, and
I thought this, this would be great. But we had
the road behind him and the cars you'd see a
semi would drive by, and cars would drive by. And
(20:48):
he he recants his story, and it's funny. He says, well,
I didn't think you knew what you were doing, Shane,
because I heard all these cars behind me, and surely
you were going to, you know, capture one of these
cars in this picture, because I couldn't control the traffic obviously,
and I knew darn well that the process is so
slow as long as the cars were moving that they
would never be rendered right, So it'd have to be standing.
(21:08):
He's there perfectly still. I got this image of him standing.
It's very iconic image. And Uh, I thought it was
important to give Ernie the honor of naming that plate.
So he says, I don't. I don't have the name now, Shane,
let me I will, I will, They will cray over
(21:29):
it and I will come back to you.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
And then he came back.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
He says, we will call it Eternal Field. And what's
significant about Eternal Field? And I just went up just
about a month ago and was able to see Eternal
Field and they pulled it onto the archive and showed
it to me. So I haven't seen this plate in,
you know, in a decade. And what significant is that
was the plate that was the first ever played in
any museum here at the State Historical Site in North Dakota.
(21:55):
So the ladies up there, Emily and lindsay, UH decided that,
you know, we should take this in and they took
it into the archives.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
So of those one.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
Hundred and one other museums that I have around the world,
you know, they were the first, and that was the
first image. So everyone followed Ernie and then you know,
the plate got so much attention that that you know,
that State Historical Society, you know, we had a little
meeting and they said, well, what about what about a series?
And I was thinking, okay, I don't know any Native Americans.
(22:27):
So I thought, okay, we'll do a series of ten plates,
and we can get ten plates, we can have a
little series or something like that. And I you know,
Dakota who of Good House was number two out here
from United Tribes or professor out there, a very close
friend of mine, and he came in as a stranger, right,
So I had Ernie was my first Native American avenue
could go to Good House, follows him in, you know.
(22:47):
Some months later and after I shared the webplate of
the Coda Good House, it was just okay, we got
to ten, we'll do fifty, and then we got to fifty,
and then I would say I'll do one hundred, and
then when I got to one hundred, it's like, well
enough for this I'm going to say a thousand and
when I declared that, and this was a promise I
made to my friends. At this point, I knew I
(23:08):
was pushing myself out fifteen years that this process to
take a thousand portraits, and I didn't, you know, But
it's all trial, it's all it's all word of mouth,
it's all. They all just come in from all over.
Native Americans has come in as far as from Florida,
miss A Native American World came about flew in with
their dad and spent three days with me to get
(23:28):
a portrait taken from Florida. So so they people have
come in from all over the country. And then we
should talk really quickly about the fact that Northern Plains
Native Americans a modern web play perspective, the name really
doesn't apply to what I'm doing anymore because I'm shooting
you know, Native Americans from Washington State, in Arizona, and
you know, New Mexico and in Florida and and so.
(23:51):
But I always wanted to keep the name consistent because
it's just I just wanted to be all inclusive. So
there's no entry. As long as you're Native American, you
can be part of this, so there was I'm just
trying to be as you know, inclusive as I as
I possibly can. So if anyone who's Native American wants
to come in that they come in from Michigan and
Minnesota and come in from Canada, so it's it's quite
(24:14):
the honor.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
So I will.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
You know, the name's kind of stuck even though it
doesn't really apply anymore. And people has asked me, well,
why is it called Northern Plains because you're taking pictures
of people from all over and it's because it was
it was a hubble beginning. And how could I have
when you when you're planning on ten portraits, how do
you know you've got to have a name for those
ten portraits? How could you ever have guessed that this
(24:37):
is where I'd find myself? Right, So so in a way,
I just keep honoring those first people that trusted.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Me absolutely, and you know, and what a beautiful honor
for them. You know, their rich heritage is being remembered
in like you said, it's just no longer than Northern Plains,
but it's branched out to include all those indigenous people. Yes,
I have you had anyone say from like Alaska.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Yep at all yep from Alaska, had had one indigenous
person from New Zealand, had one indigenous person from Mexico.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
So yeah, it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
It just stick spans and expands.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
It had an Inuit Native America not too long ago
as well, so yeah, it just it's all. But it's
all word of mouth. People think that I'm average. All.
I share the work and then the people in the photographs.
Every week I share the work that I do. I
booked out for seven months for my Friday sessions, so
every week, you know, I do the pictures, I share
it with the people that were in the picture, and
(25:41):
then they share it and the next thing, you know,
I'm just inundated with and then you get more people,
just keep any more people. So it's all just been osmosis,
really and it's it's really a fabulous way. We didn't
have a game plan.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Well, and sometimes good things happen from not planning it
too much. Yeah, then it's a little more spontaneous. Yeah,
and you know that's just amazing to me. And I
know I've looked at those books at the library and
I could just spend hours looking at those beautiful photographs.
You know, A wonderful way to pay tribute to that
(26:15):
beautiful culture.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (26:18):
Well, the other.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Famous wet plate photographers like Orlando's got golf and I
believe at one time partner of GoF was D. F. Berry.
They worked in Bismarck. What can you tell me about
them and how they're working has inspired you?
Speaker 4 (26:36):
Well, obviously Orlando Scott Goff in his portrait of sitting
bowl is really important DF Berry. He ended up believing.
I actually have an original business card of D. F.
Berry's in my studio that I have marked for the
Historical Society. So these these frontier photographers, this was this
was their thing that they would They would take these
photographs and then send them back you know east, And
(26:58):
this is why you know these historic images are you know,
so people do. It just became part of the psyche
of as these frontier photographers were taking moving west. They
were taking these photographs and sending them back.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
So and they just didn't sit in their studio here
in Bismarck.
Speaker 5 (27:17):
They traveled.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
They were traveling you go to their subjects because many
times there are subjects could not come to them.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Edward Curtis was another one who's really inspired me. He's
not from you know, North Dakota, but you know he
photographed in the early nineteen hundreds. You know their claims
of thirty thousand plates being made over a thirty year period,
and you know, he had lost his studios financially in
a divorce and all kinds of things and plates were
(27:46):
broken and all kinds of things, and he was found,
you know, many years after his His work was identified
many years after he was gone, and some of the
most significant Native American he was doing dry plates, which
is a different pross that's a little bit more simple
than mine. He could actually buy his plates directly from
Kodak Eastman, just take him out of the box and
load him in his camera and take photographs, so he
(28:07):
could Orlando Scott goff in the Bismarck Tribune, again, if
I can share this, is that in about eighteen eighty
five they came up with the dry plate process. And
these are approximate dates, but around eighteen eighty five the
wet plate fell out of favor because the photographers could
now buy these plates had already had the silver on them,
and they could just expose them. And golf In the
(28:28):
Bismarck Tribune was interviewed and said he was astounded that
he was able to make over eighty plates in one afternoon,
and he was just blown away because when I work
eight hours on a Friday, I make row five or
six plates.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
So you know, you can about imagine.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
So they quickly abandoned the wet plate process in eighteen
eighty five because they didn't need a dark room. So
GoF could take his plates and Edward Curtis could take
his plates out in the field right, a whole bunch
of these plates.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Whereas with web plate the people had to come to them,
so you.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Had to make that.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
He actually making the plates in the field, so it's
a it's a totally different thing. So he could take
You could take a hundred plates out and then go
and take a hundred exposures. Don't worry about them at all.
You could come back and develop them. Edward Curtis could
develop them weeks later, and he had no idea what
he had. He was just out in the field loading plates,
taking exposures, putting them away, and then weeks later keeping
them in the dark weeks later going back to his
(29:23):
dark room. And many times Edward Curtis would just go
back to his tent and develop them there that that
night to see how he had. But the point was
is that photography became much more simple and the photographer
was freed up from a dark room. When I went
down and took a photograph of Greta Tumberg out at
Standing Rock called Standing for Us all, you know, I
(29:45):
had to have my dark room with me, like I'm
working in the field with this dark room. So it's
a it's a Dante tesk. When I just went up
and photographed Leondard peril Tyer up at Chippean Nation, you know,
there was a dark room that had to be there.
And Leonard spent four hours when they promised me too,
and spent four hours with me at eighty years of
age and being these seven plates.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
And it was amazing.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
I remember, you know, we were six plates in and
then we had time for one more, one more plate.
And I said, well, Leonard, what would you like to do?
And he says, and he sat in his chair and
he wanted to put his his fist up to his chests.
And I said, well, Leonard, that's what we're going to do.
And Leonard sat in the chair and and you know
that plate, you know, that plate went to.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
A museum as well.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
So it's these little moments, but it's always My Native
American work is always a collaboration. So it should be
said here as and I want to put it on
the record. Is that, and I've said this many times,
is that I never introduce anything into my portraits of
my Native American series. Now, I've got creative work that
I do, all kinds of creative work, but if it's
Northern Plains Native Americans, I've never introduced a prop. I've
(30:52):
never introduced an article, clothing, a sash, and I have
all these things in my my studios, gifts that have
been given and every once in a while it hasn't
happened in a while, but a Native American will be
in my change room and they'll grab something and put
it on, and they'll come out and I quickly have
to identify that boy, that's mine. I have to take
that off of you, with all due respect, because I
(31:12):
don't want to.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
I'm not dressing up Native Americans. They either bring it
or they or we.
Speaker 5 (31:18):
Don't use natives as they are in regalia.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
And I think I've lost a lot of sitters because
people see these these beautiful images of these Native Americans
in their in they're fine regalia, and they think that
that's required and it's absolutely not.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
Is there a choice.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
If they choose to come with it, wonderful, and if
they choose not to.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
That perfectly well too. I've I've photographed a Native American
surgeon with this surgeon cap on and a young boy
with his baseball cap on. I mean, this is not
It's called a modern web play perspective for a reason.
I can easily put these Native Americans back in the
eighteen hundreds if if I'm careful. But it's not a requirement.
(31:56):
It's just we're just tipping our hats. And I always
it's kind of fun to play with that a little bit.
Like I had a Native American boxer come in and
you know, he sat in the chair and we hung
his modern day boxing gloves off the back of the chair.
So if you look at the plate, it's got you know,
if you're not paying attention, you just see this Native
American sitting there, But if you look closely, you see
(32:16):
these modern day gloves and it kind of tips its
hat to the modern day and I and I like
doing that kind of that.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Kind of it just transcends time.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
I'm not trying.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
I'm not trying to pretend I'm not.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
I have no intention.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
They set They set the tone when you when you.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Ask them, well, what would you like to wear, They're
going to wear.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
Like if you ask me what I want, I'm going
to put a suit on. If I had a formal
portrait session, I'm going to put a suit on. They
this is this, and this is so much more than
a suit like this is this is this is religious clothing.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
Absolutely, it's not it's not the same. Yeah, it's not
a shop.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
It's something that's very important. It's very much a part
of their culture and it has a meaning to them.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
I've been accused on a couple of okays where people
have said that this and the quote was on one
of the occasions was that you could not have possibly
taken that in modern day like they've accused me of
taking historical images and calling them my own, like stealing
them from someone else. And then what I do is
I just show them the iPhone picture of me with
(33:19):
my arm around the subject or something like that, or
some kind of behind the scene image which I'm meticulous
and Chad Nodland here in Bismarck. He's my digital photography
with my studio. If it's a big shoot, like he
went all the way up there with Leonard, I mean
that was a big date, right, Like not only do
I have to get the plates of Leonards for the
six museums that they went to, I had to document
(33:39):
that what we did that day, Like it's very important
that it shows that I made these images on this
day and here it is.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
There's proof to this.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
So there's no question, and there never should be a question,
but there are always.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Are allway were going to especially with artificial intelligence these
days and the way that people are just generating images
just based off I just had a talk last week
with my students, a whole lecture on the ugliness of
that technology and that there's no historical aspect or no
historical merit whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Because it's artificial that never happened.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
It never happen, you never used. It's not a photograph.
I may people are getting sick of me. I'm champion
in this cause, but I have no choice, Like I
really love photography like this, so then.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
It really it just it just you know, for the
lack of a better word, it just muddies that water.
You know, of beautiful natural photography, that one snapshot in
time that will never ever be created again, versus something
that can just be mass produced. You know, there is
a big difference, and it can.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Be deceiving, right, it can be deceiving.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
You can put John Lennon on the top of a
building with Martin Luther King shaking hands, and that damn
photo excuse my language, can get out in the wild
fifty years from now. It's real because they don't know
anything or they have no concept that those two men
never met on that building, or that.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
There was impossible for that to have happened. Right, Well, Shane,
I just want to thank you so much for coming
into the studio today and talking to us about your photography,
as well as sharing your thoughts on the work of
other historic wet plate photographers here in Bismarck. And if
our audience wants to find out more information about your work,
(35:30):
where can they explore that?
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Yeah, if they just go to www dot nostalgiaclass wetplatestudio
dot com. It's rather long, but they can find me there,
or you can just do I have a Wikipedia. There's
a Wikipedia page about me, so you can find me there,
and just on Google you can just type in my
name Shane Balkowitch and it will It'll bring up all
my work and what I've been working on so diligently.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
I've probably got.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
Maybe a couple more years to get to my thousand,
my goal of one thousand Native American portraits.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
So I'm just every week just.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
I'm looking forward to volume four. Yeah, I know, Volume
three just came out last year, I believe. Yeah, so
get started on number.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Four and people ask me, are you going to stop
at a thousand? I have no I will take Native
American portraits for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
But it was the thousand.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
The number one thousand was a promise that I had
made to my you know, to my friends, so I
don't want to let them down.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Well.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Absolutely, Well, again, thank you for this fascinating discussion on
this historic photography technique. I've learned a lot and I
just can't say it enough. Thank you for your time today.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
It's an honor.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Kay Okay, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Thank you for listening to History Hot Dish.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
If you like what you heard.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
That is Mark Historical Society host programs and events throughout
the year. We welcome all those with an interest in
local history to join us. For more information about programs
or membership, our website Bismarkhistory dot org, or find us
on Facebook. You can find History Hot Dish on one
o two point five FM, Radioaccess dot org, and anywhere
you find great podcasts. History Hot Dish is produced by
(37:16):
the Bismarck Historical Society in partnership with Dakota Media Access
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