Rivers series
Date2012 - 2014
Mediumambrotype (glass plate), digital print, and archival pigment prints
DimensionsAmbrotype Plate Size: 7 3/8 × 9 3/16 inches (18.7 × 23.3 cm)
Print Image Size: 16 1/4 × 20 1/4 inches (41.3 × 51.4 cm)
Print Sheet Size: 20 3/16 × 25 3/4 inches (51.3 × 65.4 cm)
Credit LineGift of Karen Wells and Andrew Canning.
Object number2019.32.1-.10
Copyright© Michael Kolster.
The images and text contained on this page are owned by Telfair Museums or used by the Museum with permission from the owners. Unauthorized reproduction, transmission or display of these materials is prohibited with the exception of items deemed “fair use” as defined by U.S. and international copyright laws.Label TextAs part of his Rivers series (2011-14), photographer Michael Kolster created contemporary wet-plate ambrotypes and subsequent digital prints of four American rivers that flow into the Atlantic Ocean—the Androscoggin, Schuylkill, James, and Savannah—as they emerge from two centuries of industrial use and neglect.
In the spirit of 19th-century photographers such as Louis Daguerre, Henry Fox Talbot, and Timothy O’Sullivan, Kolster made unique glass-plate images in a portable darkroom set up along the banks and overlooks of these rivers. His process recalled the historical relationship between the dawn of photography and the rise of industrialization, as the chemistry involved in fixing and developing the image on a plate mirrored the forms of the landscape captured in his photographs. Ultimately, Kolster’s ambrotypes suggest that as the boundaries continue to dissolve between humankind and nature, we can embrace and cherish places once degraded and ignored that have become, in their own way, alluring.
