Behind the Scenes: Artists & Alchemists

When we first came across the trailer for Artists & Alchemists, we were intrigued, so much so, that we decided to dig a little deeper and see what can else we could find out about this upcoming documentary film.

A call to Market Street Productions, the company behind the film, introduced us to producer, Stacy Ekstein. At the end of our conversation one thing about this film was very cleary: It's a labor of love.

Artists & Alchemists is a full-length documentary, set to be released sometime in the near future, that revolves around 10 influential photographers, each one dedicated to reviving 19th century photographic techniques in an prodominantly digital time.It features the work of Sally Mann, Mark Osterman, Irving Pobboravsky, Mark Kessell, France Scully Osterman, Jayne Hinds Bidaut, Adam Fuss, John Coffer, Jerry Spagnoli and Chuck Close.

Where did the inspiration from the film come from? How did Market Street get involved?
We saw a daguerreotype by the artist Mark Kessell around 2002. It was new and the silver so polished you could only see your reflection until you stepped away to reveal this face staring back at you from what seemed like behind the glass. I’d never seen anything like it.

That’s when we contacted Mark.

It was a natural progression.Artists & Alchemists started as an exploration between Chris and myself. Chris is a cinematographer and both of his parents are photographers. His mother, E.F. Kitchen is a fine art 8x10 platinum photographer. We founded Market Street Productions in 2005 and this documentary has been a passion project for both of us.

When did you start shooting?
This has certainly been a passion project. We did our first interview in 2003 with Mark. We were just on a mission of discovery at the time. Chris had gradated from Tisch NYU and we were both living in New York where Mark works. Since that time, we grew as professionals in film. Chris is a DP with an MFA from the American Film Institute and some awards under his belt. I have been producing for the past five years. It’s been exciting to see so many share our passion on this topic. We put a rough teaser up on youtube for a few friends to view and in a little over a week, we had 4500 views and e-mails from all over the world… as well as this interview.