Resurrectionists

This evening I was doing a photo-shoot of some items produced by an artist friend, Joanna Robson. I had fun with this - it was the first time I was doing product photography. I took a large cut of a very large roll of white paper and placed this on the floor/against the wall and then lit it with multiple lamps... In hindsight, I should have taken a photo of the setup too, but ah well. Next time :-)

Joanna practices the art of etching: creating metal plates to be used in mechanical printing presses via scratching and dipping the plates in acid - dangerous stuff!

The item pictured above is a folded single-panel hand-made book based on the 18th century body snatchers, also known as "resurrectionists" - people in the grim trade of gathering recently buried corpses to sell to medical schools for dissection and study. Before the invention of deep refrigeration systems, this was the only way to ensure a sizeable supply of fresh subject material.

If you want a visual low-down on how etching is done see here: about a month ago I had accompanied Joanna to the Dundee Contemporary Arts centre in Dundee, Scotland, where I documented in photos the etching process for her. These were subsequently posted to her blog.