"Girl With Bomb" with my daughter Mahliya Balkowitsch in the historic wet plate collodion process of pure silver on glass. I knew that I had to artistically oppose the war in Ukraine at some point. Laine Pope my propmaster spent months developing the bespoke bomb. The serial number for the bomb is the exact day in February that the first bomb was dropped on Ukraine by Putin. She made every element by hand including the look of a young girl standing in a field. Laine even wrote a strong letter to Putin and sealed it inside the bomb. My vision for the composition was to have a young Ukrainian girl catch a Russian bomb from the sky before it hit the ground and hurt anyone.
Carl Zeiss Tessar 300mm lens, f4.5, 7 seconds of exposure, 8x10" black glass ambrotype, natural light through Northern facing windows and skylights at Nostalgic Glass Wet Plate Studio, Bismarck, North Dakota, Plate #4551, taken on 2-5-2023. Chad Nodland the digital photographer to my studio captured the behind the scene shots.
This quality art paper 11x14” print is from an original 8x10” black glass ambrotype scan. Each print is embossed with the studio stamp, numbered and signed by Shane Balkowitsch the artist. Mahliya has also agreed to sign the back of each of the prints as well. There are only 100 of these prints being made available for worldwide distribution.