Nolan Streitberger was stuck.
You could say that the Albany-based graphic designer, painter and printer was the Benjamin Buttons of photography: He had moved from taking photos with a digital camera to film and eventually to darkroom paper.
Learn how a man arrested for drug addiction in the 1960s influenced the law that requires Oregon cities to provide sleeping quarters for the homeless.
And then someone at an artist talk in the mid-Willamette Valley said he could teach Streitberger how to pour light-sensitive stain over a glass plate and expose it to light to take photographs.
“I understand why everyone gave up on this process when the film came out,” Streitberger said.
Streitberger’s humor cannot really be described with the risky and rewarding experiences he describes in wet plate photography.
Stanley Gamblerton, a persona of Jeff Smith, sits for a portrait in this undated large-format photograph. Albany artist Nolan Streitberger pours light-reactive collodion onto glass or aluminum plates to create photographs in the style of mid-19th century documentary filmmakers.
Courtesy of Nolan Streitberger
But a workshop on steampunk is planned for August 31st, and an exhibition will open in Corvallis around the same time. Streitberger’s photos are now appearing more frequently on glass and metal plates, painstakingly made with a clunky camera.
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I “don’t feel it”
Through filming, Streitberger learned to slow down.
Every time a camera shutter was released on a digital sensor, Streitberger’s fingers communicated with a screen.
“And I just didn’t have a good feeling,” said Streitberger.
He built a darkroom. He bought film. Streitberger said that without the play button and the instant feedback of digital technology, photography began to focus his vision.
In 2016, HP fired Streitberger from his job as a graphic designer and his wife, Rachel Streitberger, an educational assistant in Albany and member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribal Council, returned to work.
So Nolan Streitberger began documenting his daughter’s life.
Haley Streitberger lies in a swing in this undated photo. Nolan Streitberger photographed his daughter from the age of five. She is now 13 and the subject of Streitberger’s collection “Long Summer Days,” which is on display at the Arts Center in Corvallis through the end of September.
Courtesy of Nolan Streitberger
Haley was 5, Nolan Streitberger said, and the focus of several years of photography using many different cameras and types of film. He is exhibiting some of those images in “Long Summer Days,” a photo essay showing Aug. 30-Sept. 28 at the Arts Center in Corvallis.
But some of his favorite photos had been taken by photographers on collodion, and that medium seemed hard to find.
A search on YouTube turned up bearded men working long shifts, both artisans and artists, mixing photochemical solutions, scrubbing panes of glass, pouring silver-containing mixtures into them, clamping coated plates into heavy brass and wood boxes, opening a shutter to expose the whole thing to light, and then developing the captured image.
Nolan Streitberger shot “Mary’s River Ferry” while photographing the trails and roads that people walked from what is now southern Oregon to the Grand Ronde Community reservation in the 1850s and 1860s, when the U.S. military forced thousands to relocate. Streitberger photographed the sites through an 1850s lens – using a photographic process from the same era – based on government records and diaries from the time.
Courtesy of Nolan Streitberger
“You could watch 200 videos on this process and still not understand it,” Streitberger said. “You have to learn it one-on-one with someone who knows what they’re doing.”
During a few weekends in Corvallis, Streitberger learned about a workflow that photographers had developed over decades in the mid-19th century.
Haley Streitberger poses for a portrait in this undated photo. Nolan Streitberger photographed his daughter starting at age 5. She is now 13.
Courtesy of Nolan Streitberger
And then Oregon ordered everyone to stay home to stop the spread of the coronavirus. When large numbers of people started dying in early 2020, Streitberger was indeed in a tight spot.
“I don’t think anyone would have imagined it would have such a big impact on their lives until it actually happened,” Streitberger said.
He has time
Streitberger had much more time to develop a more extensive work that was created from a greater distance.
He said his daughter had lost interest in photography after years of growing up in front of the camera.
In the meantime, he was trying to figure out how to portray the people who lived in what is now the Willamette Valley long before the arrival of European settlers.
Nolan Streitberger made this image of objects in a box on a plate painted with light-sensitive collodion. “Hey, Boo” is one of the photographs in Streitberger’s collection “Long Summer Days,” which is on display at the Arts Center in Corvallis through the end of September.
Courtesy of Nolan Streitberger
These images are part of his Trail of Tears project, which documents the forced removal of Rogue River, Umpqua and other peoples by the United States to the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. He has exhibited this work at the Albany Regional Museum, where he is a member of the Board of Directors.
In the field, he takes a 5″ x 7″ camera to photograph vantage points on a trail or landmark. Each image is shot close to the road – he sets up a complete darkroom in a light-tight ice fishing tent.
Each is a documented location on a forced relocation route, based on military records and diary entries from the mid-19th century.
And each image requires numerous hours of planning and shooting.
This fits Streiberg, who originally made cyanotypes, screen prints, woodcuts and paintings.
“It’s all done by hand,” he said.
And with wet plate photography, the photographer’s hands are fully involved in the process.
Nolan Streitberger shot Near Mr. Frederick’s while documenting the system of roads and trails that people took when the United States drove them off their land in what is now southern Oregon and relocated thousands to the Grand Ronde Community reservation.
Courtesy of Nolan Streitberger
“A photo requires a lot of time and effort,” said Streitberger. “If I can come home with a beautiful photo, it’s worth the 10-hour day.”
Streitberger is offering tintype photo shoots at Janky Bird in Brownsville on Saturday, Aug. 31, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. The shop, which opened in February, is part tattoo parlor, part art gallery, part vintage store, and this month is temporarily home to an exhibit by the Eugene Museum of Techno Art.
Participants — a heads up: The hour-long sessions cost $100, with registration open at https://bit.ly/46JWJMc — can watch the hour-long proceedings outdoors near the railroad cars at the Linn County Historical Museum.
Streitberger said he would not allow people to touch the chemicals in the darkroom – silver nitrate is “not the most environmentally friendly chemical in the world”.
But “they’re in there with me all the time,” he said.
Streitberger said everyone who participates should bring their own steampunk costume. The paintings will build on a themed exhibit, “Museum of Techno Art,” on display at the art gallery of Janky Bird, a tattoo parlor in Brownsville.
Streitberger said interest in large, slow and carefully taken photographs seems to be growing – including those of his daughter.
Haley is now 13 and was recently asked to recreate early photos from the series and helped select photos for the upcoming show.
“She’s kind of coming back to it now,” Streitberger said. “She’s a little more grown up and probably looks at it a little differently.”
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Alex Powers (he/him) covers agriculture, Benton County, the environment and the City of Lebanon for Mid-Valley Media. Call 541-812-6116 or tweet @OregonAlex.
