- [Elizabeth] I feel like the year 2020
is just a year of change.
(chanting)
(soft piano music)
There have been a lot of protests.
(explosion sound)
And I think things that have been going on for decades
are really hitting a boiling point right now.
(soft piano music)
(heart monitor beeping)
Because of the pandemic, people are dying
in the United States.
There's wildfires destroying more than
a million acres in Oregon now.
Also devastation is up and down the West coast.
People are learning to cope
with things they've never dealt with before.
(soft piano music)
For me personally, I'm out of my regular day job
and it kind of made me take a step back and think
how can I make work for myself?
(soft piano music)
Right there?
- [Narrator] One thing that fit right into
Elizabeth Fennelly's quest for reinvention
was an upcoming photography show.
- It's called Oregon in Extraordinary Times.
And it's put on by the Oregon Society of Artists.
- [Narrator] Elizabeth decided to revive her interest
in wet plate photography.
- [Elizabeth] It's pretty disorganized.
(soft piano music)
I knew I wanted to make this mobile dark room.
I knew I wanted to do a series of tin types.
So I started photographing people in the van community.
Look at me for a second.
That's good.
But then I think it kind of unfolded deeper than that.
I think for a lot of people,
their van is their kind of safe haven.
- [Man] Kind of staggered a little bit like a 45.
- [Elizabeth] Yeah, like turn towards me a little bit.
Back up a little bit that way.
Cool.
That's their vehicle that they use to escape,
the way that they feel solace.
I started to realize with the pandemic and lockdown
the van is kind of the answer to that for a lot of people.
(open case)
This is a four by five camera
from about 1915.
To me, different processes work better
with different subject matter.
And I just felt like this was something that took more care
and time than I would devote to it
if I shot it in digital.
I feel like digital photos to me
are kind of a fleeting moment.
And this didn't feel like a fleeting moment.
(marimba music)
I enjoy this process because I feel like
I'm really just thinking about that moment I'm in
and like hours pass.
Ready?
One, two, three,
four, five, six.
Cool.
I like to control what I can,
but I also accept that there are certain
parts of this process I'm never going to be able to control.
There's a whole other element
to the photography that doesn't come from me.
It's really incredible to see because I have
no idea virtually what the image is gonna look like.
You guys want to come see?
And sometimes it turns out really interesting.
- [Man] Wow, that's a good one.
I like it.
- So different.
- [Elizabeth] Yeah.
Coming back to the wet plate process
has been a long-term goal of mine.
And this just felt
like the time to focus on long-term goals.
So I'm going to enter some of the photos that I took today.
- [Narrator] In case you've gotten as lost in the art
of wet plate photography as Elizabeth has,
the show she's making these images for
is called Oregon in Extraordinary Times.
And Portland photographer, Mark Fitzgerald is judging it.
- So these images came in yesterday afternoon
and I've just briefly scanned over them.
And I'm taking quite a range.
People are finding all sorts of ways
to cope with these extraordinary times.
I'm going to be judging on five main things
and that is going to be impact, storytelling,
artistic concept, creativity, and other things
that can either make or break an image technically.
This one jumped out to me immediately
because everybody knows what it's been like
trying to get haircuts.
It's got a fun element with the young man in the back
smiling and the other one's sort of really focused
on what he's doing.
And the gentlemen getting a haircut
looks a little uncertain
like he's not sure what he was right to do this.
So it's really great storytelling.
I feel like it fits the show perfectly.
So this is a great use of color.
It's not the traditional way to use color
but the yellow kind of adds a sense of danger.
It gives us this feeling that there's smoke
in the air and it could be from tear gas.
The menacing looks that I'm getting from these guys.
It really makes me want to know what the story is
and makes me come up with different stories in my mind.
And then we have one more here
that is an older photo,
looks like maybe in the fifties or something.
And it's showing a different time when times were tough.
So even though we're going through
some really difficult times right now
it isn't the first time Oregon or our society
has been put to the test.
During these extraordinary times,
it's a lot harder to put on a show like this
because who knows what the opening is going to look like,
will people be able to come to the opening
but it made sense to do it now
because there's going to be a lot more meaning
to the images that are being shown.
- [Narrator] Fortunately, the opening of the show
managed to grab one of the last rainless October days,
but the nearly 100 year old Oregon Society of Artists
was definitely playing it COVID safe.
- All right, welcome everyone to OSA.
And we have wine and water
and some snacks individually wrapped
because that's the COVID way.
The OSA population is largely older.
So we want to be extra cautious about their health.
So we put the arrows on the floor mostly
so that we can keep that traffic directed
and the windows are open and the fans going.
So we have a very safe space.
We are very blessed to have Mark
as our juror for this particular show.
(crowd clapping)
- [Mark] Thanks Nancy.
So this piece was selected for best in show.
So I thought this piece did a really good job
of telling a really interesting story
about fear and anxiety.
Best in show is Ceara Swogger. Congratulations.
(crowd clapping)
- I won best in show, which I did not expect at all.
So that's awesome.
I guess for me, the idea is always to tell stories.
It's what we want to do as photographers.
We want to create an image that makes people think
it turned out to be kind of 2020 encapsulated.
We're all stuck in this fear
of a plague going around and protests and the fires
and it's this apocalyptic feeling that we all have.
And I took that and I wanted to make art with it.
- [Narrator] Some of the other outstanding images
in the show included this highly crafted piece
that seemed to reach right into our nightmares.
Or the way the natural world continues to amaze
and inspire us no matter what's happening in our own lives.
Or a subtle reminder that someday soon the sun will rise
over Oregon's biggest city and a wispy cloud
will crown her highest peak.
Elizabeth Finnelly's tin types
were a bit smaller than the others,
but they fit right in.
- [Elizabeth] I really liked seeing how this experience
has been for other people.
People really looked at it through their own lens.
The way I did.
It was a lot about intimate moments in Oregon
and how people felt like their own lives have changed.
I like that I see small personal statements
about each individual's life through their work,
which is what I tried to do too.