Duo Shoots a Wet Plate Photo Together Despite a 7000km Separation

With the current state of affairs, photographers have been coming up with unique ways to exercise their craft remotely. Photographer Markus Hofstaetter decided he wanted to make a portrait with a friend and came up with a way to do it despite the vast distance between them.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hofstaetter has been unable to travel to see friends, let alone take photos with them. Still, he did not want to simply do nothing.

“We couldn’t do a lot of things because of the pandemic, but I won’t let this get me down,” he writes in his blog about the project. “I also didn’t want to wait for some things I wanted to do. That’s when I came up with the idea to do things differently.”

Hofstaetter decided he wanted to stand side-by-side with his friend Shane Balkowitsch despite their physical distance. To do so, he came up with a rather innovative way that involves a projector, a Dedolight with a gobo cutout, his camera, and a darkened room.

“For me, it was important to show, that there are always ways to do something,” Hofstaetter says.

Hofstaetter played around with the idea of making a projection of his friend standing next to him in the studio and decided to see how that would work. As you might imagine, given the vast difference in light, the exposure didn’t quite turn out right.