Joni Sternbach
‘Surfland’
Southeast Museum of Photography
27.1.2012 - 22.4.2012
Captured directly on the shoreline, Joni Sternbach’s luminous images possess the immediate quality of a singular print created then-and-there as she captures portraits of contemporary surfers in tintype, a 19th-century technique first used during the American Civil War and little changed since then. The large camera seems to slow down time, so that her subjects possess a distilled and timeless grace and beauty that seems so far removed from the energy, movement and animation we commonly associate with the surfing life.
The technical procedure is labor intensive, with the chemistry mixed and applied to metal plates just seconds before each exposure; meaning that the chemicals must be hand-applied, exposed and developed before the plate dries. The exposure time is also very long, requiring stillness on behalf of the subject for many seconds. Sternbach’s vintage process lured surfers to pose for her camera and has resulted in what the photographer calls “part performance, part laboratory.”