Joni Sternbach
Surfland
Fábrica Cal Garbat
Launched in 2006, this series brings together environmental portraits of surfers photographed on beaches around the world – people who find in the sea a daily form of escape.
The images, unique ferrotype prints, are produced using the wet collodion technique (an ancient process that requires preparation and development on site).
The work is developed collaboratively with the surfers, in a dynamic that mirrors the very movement of the sea: physical, ever-changing and fluid. The beach serves as a studio; seconds after the shot is taken, each subject sees their image appear in the fixer. The figures are captured in transit, suspended in the brief pause between the firm ground and the escape into the water.
Joni Sternbach (New York) is a photographer who works with large-format film and historical processes to explore landscape, water and the relationship between people and their environment.
She is particularly renowned for *Surfland*, a series of ferrotype portraits of surfers, and for her explorations of the landscapes of the American West.
Her work has been exhibited internationally, featured at MoMA, and is held in major public collections in the United States and Europe.
