Lyle Rexer
What was your background as a photographer?

Sergei Romanov
I guess this is the most difficult question! Well, I have always been a photographer. My childhood memories are static images without movement—but still they give me feelings. I got my hands on a camera at the age of 12: it was a FED 3, an absolute metal nightmare. Then I became really interested in dabbling in photography and when I was 30 I decided to make it my profession. Then I worked for various magazines, advertisement jobs, and other insignificant assignments.

Lyle Rexer
How and where did you become aware of ambrotypes and how did you learn to make them? Were there others in Russia interested in the process or were you looking at the work of international photographers, such as Sally Mann?

Sergei Romanov
The first time I ever saw ambrotype photography was on the Internet—they were post-mortem portraits of Victorian-era children, and they left me with the strongest emotions regarding the medium. These portraits were everlasting images of mortality, a constant reminder of death. And even today I consider the ambrotype to be the most terrifying, haunting, technique. To tell you the truth, back then it didn’t even occur to me that there was someone else, I mean someone contemporary, who was making ambrotypes. I remember when I watched a documentary about Sally Mann for the first time, it was a complete shock to me, after which I couldn’t do anything but ambrotypes. The next step was to research what ambrotype photography was and its technique, and where to buy materials, especially the chemicals. I soon realized that you couldn’t buy collodion, glacial acetic acid (CH3COOH), or silver nitrate (AgNO3) as an ordinary customer in Russia. You need to have special licenses. Then I tried to make it all myself, but it all came out as a big failure. It took me about three years to reach a somewhat workable method.

Lyle Rexer
The term ambrotype derives from Greek and it means “immortal impression.” Is this dialogue of mortality/immortality one reason why you were attracted to this technique? Are there other qualities that are important?

Sergei Romanov
Ambrotype is beautiful when you use a low ISO. It also has the capacity to take long exposures under an open diaphragm, with practically no visible grain. The other truly magnificent reason to work with the ambrotype, especially when using an authentic ambrotype camera, is the Petzval lens, which I adore. The oldest one I have in my lens collection is from 1863. The orthochromaticity of an ambrotype image makes it look “strange,” with rather complex textures. The real silver makes the image appear full of amazing light reflections, like living substances. As it ages, the image gains more contrast. The changes in temperature while shooting and developing the glass plates also create unexpected results. Therefore, you can’t take stable, commercial photographs—it’s not stable enough for predictable image-making. What’s beautiful about it is the accidents. The largest format I can make with it is 62 x 62, the smallest 13 x 18.

Lyle Rexer
Do you see the adoption of this antiquated process as a critique of contemporary digital image-making and exchange? You can’t really experience an ambrotype except in person.

Sergei Romanov
I’m not against digital photography, I think it is a perfect step to start photographing. First 13 CAPTION MISSING Following page Nina, 2012, 2015 you have to learn how to photograph without investment in expensive technology or processing. I wouldn’t call ambrotype “antiquated,” but just a process that was invented a long time ago. No one says that painting is old-fashioned, even though it came to us centuries ago. And books as objects are not read much today, but it doesn’t mean that books are old-fashioned. All of these are ageless. Today’s digital photography is like McDonald’s, with the end distribution being Instagram. I wouldn’t judge it as good or bad. Two centuries ago the means of people’s entertainment and appeasement were salons for the upper classes and public executions in the main square: “bread and circuses.” Today they make selfies and photograph their meals, food, body parts, and everything they can. The true genius of photography is its humanization of society, and digital photography is perfect for it.

Lyle Rexer
Of course, if you want an audience, digital platforms are the way to go. But in terms of the image, is there something inadequate or missing in digital photography that ambrotypes provide?

Sergei Romanov
Canon, Nikon, Fuji… they are all the same, all standardized, soulless, and non dimensional; they take grayish-green files and then with the help of various computer programs you add and change colors. So what do you call it? A miracle of a modern technology? Taking pictures through ambrotype is something completely different, you can never get the same image with it. I did a few experiments: I tried to place two lenses on one ambrotype camera to take two portraits on one glass. Each time we had two different pictures due to the irregular optics and the developing process. Handmade optics are a real heaven for me! Two completely different lenses, with 100–120 year life span between them, give you unique outcomes, letting photographers express themselves with different results each time.

Lyle Rexer
The genre you work in is portraiture. Do you see the ambrotype as especially suited to that?

Sergei Romanov
I think that if photography takes up your whole life, sooner or later you will come to analogue photography. If your goal is pure commerce, then you would use digital, since you spend little energy on it and get rewards faster. It’s capitalism, the law of the market. While I’m shooting one portrait, a commercial photographer can shoot the whole graduation class. Also, shooting digitally allows great mobility. With ambrotype you need a whole laboratory and special lighting. Not every customer or client can travel to a photographer’s studio. For me, ambrotype is more than just photography. It’s like a space scanner, a personality scanner. A sitter is totally motionless for 8–15 seconds, with bright light shining into his or her face; it’s all very discomforting. At the same time, it shows the essence of a human being. And this essence can also be a disturbing one.

Lyle Rexer
The visual appearance of your subjects is truly remarkable. Altogether, they form a portrait gallery of contemporary types. How do you choose them?

Sergei Romanov
I don’t have a system for choosing models. It always happens by chance. People I know. Friends of friends. Some people find me through the Internet and ask to be photographed. My studio is located in a former factory where other creative services also rent space, and I can just go out and walk 14 15 to a main entrance to find models. One of the reasons why the portraits look so diverse is that the subjects usually choose their own poses. I can ony correct the light.

Lyle Rexer
Do you see your photography as a social document of types, psychological investigation, or something more spiritual?

Sergei Romanov
I’m not interested in a complimentary photography. As I said, I don’t concentrate on a person’s posture or position or technical details to improve their appearance. I don’t want to interrupt the transmission of the essence, the spirituality, the soul of a person. I’m not interested in photographing “masks” that people put on. I just try to make a portrait of a human being with no time, no posed emotions, no staged settings—just a portrait. That’s it. My portraits are documents of space, my studio, and time, 8 seconds in the life of a person. To my mind all the rest is a lie.

Lyle Rexer
Do you see your photography as occupying a place in the history of Russian photography? If so, what place, in relation to which photographers and movements? If not, are you rejecting those connections?

Sergei Romanov
I would like to think I have a place, but I don’t feel connected to a tradition. “There is no prophet in his homeland,” as the Russian proverb states. I believe that if Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii didn’t go abroad and if his collection of photographs weren’t sold to the Library of Congress, no one in Russia would have known about him.1 So there is a history of photographers being disconnected from appreciation in Russia. On the other hand, I am a complete antipode to Prokudin-Gorskii; he created new modes of photography and I’m just trying to preserve the old, working with ambrotypes. I don’t reject a connection with Russia, it’s just that I don’t see it in my case. I didn’t learn photography from Russians, I don’t know the Russian classical style. I don’t remember any names of Russian photographers, except Moisei Nappelbaum. I have never shown in Russia and have never had any exhibitions. It seems we don’t exist for each other, meaning I don’t exist in that field nor does it exist for me.