TCF Ep. 479 - Ken Merfeld

The Candid Frame: Conversations on Photography

Ibarionex R. Perello

Cameras, Art, Photoshop, Visual Arts, Career, Interviews, Photographers, Arts, Photography, Photo, Digital

4.8 • 749 Ratings

🗓️ 13 August 2019

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ken Merfeld owns and operates a commercial / fine art photography studio where he photographs fashion, advertising, portrait, and celebrity assignments. His work has appeared in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Mademoiselle, Angelino, Zoom, Black and White, and Los Angeles magazines. Prior to his work in the world of Wet-Plate Collodion, Ken has worked on a personal portrait project (traditional silver prints) for more than 20 years which includes: dancers, bikers, people with their pets, autistic children, “little people”, transvestites, identical twins, women wearing masks. In response to the rapidly moving electronic image world, as well as his inherent desire to keep his traditional darkroom alive, Merfeld has chosen to embrace the ultimate, historical, hands-on technique of Wet-Plate Collodion (originally known as the “Black Art”) from the 1860’s. Influenced by the 19th. Century portraits of Julia Margaret Cameron, whereby a single defining exposure is made on a piece of glass and processed immediately, Ken has re-defined his continuing world of emotional portraiture. Merfeld teaches photography part time at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Ca., does seminars for Julia Dean Photography Workshops in Venice Beach, Ca., and conducts Portrait Seminars out of his studio in Culver City four times a year. Ken also has a portfolio critique/review (see “Photo Soup”) service by appointment, also operated from his studio. So he won’t go absolutely crazy thinking, creating, looking at, and discussing visuals, Ken also plays an expert game of Pétanque, loves to play Djembe drums, and aspires to learn to play a blues harmonica one day. Photographer Links: Education Resources: Candid Frame Resources Download the free Candid Frame app for your favorite smart device. Click here to download for . Click here to download Support the work we do at The Candid Frame with contributing to our Patreon effort. You can do this by visiting or visiting the website and clicking on the Patreon button. You can also provide a one-time donation via . You can follow Ibarionex on and .

Transcript

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0:00.0	To sustain a career that spans over decades, you have to do it for more than just the money.
0:14.0	Because over that period of time, there are going to be many ups and downs, moments of incredible elation and moments of prolonged anxiety.
0:24.6	If you lose the spark that inspired you to do that thing you do, it becomes yet another obligation, another burden.
0:33.6	Ken Murfeld has embraced and guarded that spark within himself for nearly 30 years,
0:41.7	as he's worked as a commercial and fine art photographer as well as an educator. His process and
0:47.6	his photographs are derived as much by his deeply held emotions as the medium and tools he uses.
0:54.7	Rather than relying on the responses of others,
0:57.8	he turns to those feelings and his willingness to be honest with himself
1:01.9	to be the ultimate arbiter of his photography.
1:06.0	Not so much about the response from people.
1:10.0	It's always been about the response from me.
1:13.6	When I look at work, that's what got me involved in visuals.
1:18.6	I started looking at lots of photographs.
1:22.6	I started researching.
1:24.6	I started learning to feel when I looked at an image and tried to understand
1:30.6	what ingredients went into making feelings, feelings in work. And that's what's always driven me.
1:41.1	That's why I go beyond the surface in my portraits.
1:47.7	I'm not about the surface or the superficial.
1:53.9	I'm about feeling, honest feeling, or twisted feeling, or broken feeling.
1:58.3	But it's the feeling, not just the appearance. Though he regularly creates portraits using the wet plate collodian process,
2:03.7	he is quick to use anything that is capable of recording an image.
2:07.7	Because for him, it's the process of making the photographs and not the device itself
	...

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