Bridge of Sorrows, a palladium print by Timothy H. McCoy
Timothy McCoy is bringing new pieces of history to MTSU’s renowned Baldwin Photographic Gallery with a new exhibit of his work on egg white- and metal-treated papers, “The Mark of Time.”
McCoy’s albumen and palladium prints are on display through Thursday, Oct. 15, in the Baldwin Gallery.
McCoy, who lives and works in Cumming, Ga., regularly displays his work at single-artist and group exhibitions around the country.
His albumen prints reproduce the technique that dominated photography from the 1850s until the 1890s, when consumers could buy albumen portraits and photos mounted on board as souvenirs. Small mounted albumen prints, roughly the size of today’s wallet-size photos, became extremely popular during the Civil War as soldiers exchanged keepsake photos with family and friends before they were separated by battle.
McCoy’s 21st-century technique still uses the yellow liquid from dozens of separated eggs to create a solution that turns sketching paper into light-sensitive photographic paper. He sandwiches the treated paper in a vacuum frame with a large negative transparency, exposes it to ultraviolet light, then washes, tones and washes the paper again to create the photo.
The palladium prints McCoy creates also follow historic methods popular from the 1890s to the 1930s. The process involves a solution, created from the lustrous metal palladium, that is brushed onto vellum paper to again create a light-sensitive photographic medium. The palladiotype process became popular because of its ability to create archival prints with better tonal ranges, warmer tones and deeper blacks in photos.
“I create images to transform the ‘reality’ seen through the camera lens into expressions of the ‘oneness’ and wonder found in Buddhist/Taoist philosophy and on illustrations of those psychological archetypes found in cultural remnants left behind rather than the evanescence of contemporary culture,” McCoy said.
Special Baldwin Gallery tours can be arranged by contacting gallery curator Tom Jimison, a professor in MTSU’s Department of Electronic Media Communication in the College of Media and Entertainment, at (615) 898-2085 or tom.jimison@mtsu.edu. The gallery is located on the second floor of the Bragg Mass Communication Building on the east side of MTSU’s campus. The Baldwin Gallery is open from 8:30 a.m.–4 p.m. Monday through Friday and closed on weekends and state and university holidays.
You can learn more about McCoy and his work at timothymccoyphoto.com.
For more information about MTSU’s Baldwin Photographic Gallery, visit baldwinphotogallery.com or facebook.com/baldwinphotogallery.
