Bryan Hiott uses historic techniques to capture modern portraits that evoke ghosts of the past.
Back in the mid-’80s, Bryan Hiott used to drive past West Main Baptist on his way to Wofford College. Now, all these years later, he stands in the repurposed vestibule and points at one of his favorite portraits.
“This is Rev. Robert Chiles,” Hiott says. “When I met Bob, who was in charge of pastoral care at Christ Church Episcopal in Greenville, he became a very important figure in my life.”
Like the other 84 images on display in the Artist Collective’s Solomon Gallery, Hiott’s portrait of Rev. Chiles was made on a 6.5” x 8.5” glass plate treated with salted collodion and silver nitrate. He used a large-format wooden box camera with bellows and a brass-barrel Petzval lens manufactured in 1872.
“Several things happened making the plate chemically and logistically,” he says. “I coated it with collodion and put it into a tank of silver nitrate. It was slightly at an angle and jammed. And it was there long enough that it created this dividing line down the image.”
He leans in and points out other artifacts of the process—beautiful imperfections. Like most images, the portrait is about tonality, form, and composition—and chemistry, both literal and figurative.
“Bob has piercing blue eyes,” Hiott says. “And the color blue wants to come forward. It’s the most reactive color in the collodion process. Even with his darkened glasses on, his eyes really shine through and take on a ghostly quality.”
Hiott knew most of his subjects before they sat for their portrait, and the process deepened—sometimes clarified—his relationships with them. “The Petzval gives you this really sharp point of focus in the middle and this out-of-focus aspect all around,” he explains. “Sort of like a swirling blur around the subject.”
Each image balances intent and surprise, revelation and discovery, the ghosts of the past and the beauty of the moment.
“In Bob’s pose, there is an empathetic expression,” Hiott says. “A calmness of deep listening. I can see years and years of his talking with people, of really caring for people. He was an agent of peace and comfort during the very difficult time of my mom’s passing.”
There’s a certain inevitability to this moment—to Hiott standing here in a former church he drove past as an undergraduate, his work hanging in a vestibule turned into an art gallery, while explaining what a portrait of a friend means to him.
“These images,” he says, “they carry a lot of emotional weight for me, for the subjects, and I hope for anyone who sees them. I want them to be a catalyst for anyone who walks through this gallery. I hope they feel the interpretive possibilities.”
A Winding Path to Portraiture for Brian Hiott
After graduating from Wofford with a philosophy degree, Hiott explored religious studies at Yale Divinity School. He later lived in New York City, working as an academic administrator at The New School. In 2007, he completed his MFA in photography at Parsons School of Design, where he also taught undergraduate courses.
“I was into landscape photography when I moved back to Greenville in 2012,” Hiott reveals. “But when I set up my old studio at Taylors Mill, people would come in and ask me if I did portraits.” Friends and strangers guided him toward portraiture the way a teacher guides his student.
“Making portraits of people lets me—requires me—to be more open,” he says. “Everybody thinks it’s the person sitting in front of the camera who is vulnerable, but that’s not always so. It’s also the person making the image.”
Vulnerability is a profound mentor to any artist, and a key ingredient for building relationships.
“Even when I know the person I’m photographing, they might be anxious,” he says. “We all have a different level of comfort interacting with people. I’ve had to learn how to cultivate peace within myself. That peace in me allows them to relax, to feel comfortable. We enter a space together where they can give something of themselves to the image that might not otherwise be present.”
Whether in his studio; at Christ Church, where he sings in the choir and assists as a lay minister in the Eucharist; or in a classroom at Greenville Technical College, where he is an adjunct professor, Hiott remains very much a “people person.” He has the open mind and gentle wit of a seeker who has taken unexpected paths and discovered a great deal.
“Professor Hiott is one of the best professors I’ve ever had,” shares Elizabeth Hall, a student at Greenville Tech. “He’s someone who wants you to succeed and will help you in whatever way he can. He’s not afraid to stand up and advocate for his students . . . . He treats us like people, not just as students.”
Just as an ancient lens sees clearly within the blur, juxtaposing old and new, order and chaos, Hiott sees himself as both student and teacher. He creates images out of glass, chemicals, and light—revealing more than we can see.
Find out more about Hiott at bryanhiott.wordpress.com or on Instagram at @studio_1856.
Historic Technique
“Although most photography is now digital, I am captivated by the beautiful tones of wet plate collodion tintypes and ambrotypes. The process was invented in 1851 by Englishman Frederick Scott Archer. It was the commercial successor to the Daguerreotype and became the most widely used form of photography in the world through the 1880s. Collodion photography also gave us ambrotypes (1854) and tintypes (1856), which I make most often in my studio.”
– Bryan Hiott
