Interview with Jules Victor

The hands of Jules Victor making a palladium print

Jules Victor is a photographer from the Greater Philadelphia area, and a graduate of Drexel University’s Photography program. He has been working for over a decade to find his voice within the Philadelphia photographic community”. Jules has been printing in our darkroom since it first opened. We honored to have him at Halide!

Where did your journey with photography begin and when did your journey with alternative processes begin, if those two are separate?

 It would have to start with my journey with art in general. I come from a family of artists and art appreciators. My dad is a fairly known artist here in Philadelphia; he was the first person who exposed my brother and me to art. We were always painting and drawing. The first camera I used was my mom’s polaroid. I would go around taking photographs, capturing little moments. 

It wasn't until high school, where I took a photography class, that I really felt that photography was the medium for me. I liked the amount of control you could have, the idea of freezing certain moments, finding beautiful lighting, and finding interesting things to capture in the moment. I started taking it seriously in my junior year of high school, when I started participating in contests and projects and it grew from there.

I found out about Drexels' photography program through my high school photography teacher Candy Maggiocalda. Who was really my first first artistic mentor, other than my father. I eventually applied to Drexel, and was accepted. That’s where I met Amanda Tinker and Andrea Modica, both who are obviously really adept at alternative processes. We started out in Amanda’s class learning about cyanotype and tin type, and I loved the chemistry side of things. I always liked science and experimenting. 

 It was Andrea, who's known for her process with palladium on vellum, who showed me just how absolutely beautiful that process can be. She opened up a class for palladium printing my senior year. I took the class and fell in love with the process. I also fell in love with the tonal range of palladium and just how beautiful those prints could come out especially on vellum, where it has that sort of diffused glow quality, she really opened me up to that process.

Can you talk about the project you have been printing here at Halide, the relationship between alternative processes and your project?

I had been working on this portraiture project for years, not knowing the best way to go about displaying it. When I figured out how interesting it was to manipulate color photography into black and white, I started to play with that color spectrum. It became apparent to me that an alternative process was probably going to be the best way to do that.

During the pandemic, I was thinking about how much I missed film, how much I missed doing these types of processes, that are so calming to me and the results can be so beautiful. I picked my 4x5 up again and my medium format cameras. I started experimenting with those, getting film developed. Before that I was exclusively digital.

I felt like keeping them as digital files or even doing normal digital printing was somehow a disservice in a way. It just took me until a year into the pandemic when I had been thinking about revisiting film and revisiting these processes, that I found palladium was going to be the answer. 

I enjoy the alternative process so much for this particular project because of the amount of control, how beautiful the prints come out, and how the lighting looks within the image itself using the palladium process. It just has this really gorgeous glow about it. I love the tonal range. It's so strong, and it has this rich warm color I love.

I've always loved taking portraits. I am always meeting new people and finding out who they are and talking with them, discovering new and interesting poses and intriguing forms of light. Then the whole palladium process was able to take it that much further and make it that much more beautiful and interesting to look at.

All photos by Celeste Pulido Garcia

I want to hear more about your thoughts around the community of alternative processes and its knowledge. Hearing you talk about speaking with your mentor for a couple of hours had me thinking about passed down knowledge surrounding alt processes.

The hour or so I spent talking with Andrea about it, made me realize the magnitude of the undertaking. There is a lot in this particular process or there can be a lot if you care about it enough. She has cared about it for decades to the point where she is a master of the process and I feel really really proud to have been taught some of it by her. 

She passed it down to myself and other students at Drexel, as well Amanda Tinker, who I also have to mention because she has been a giant influence and help. She was one of my teachers who also learned the process from Andrea, I believe. I hope in time that I'll be able to share it with others like I am doing now, and hopefully my daughter some day.

In talking about the community around the process I think Philadelphia has a substantial ine. One that is taken seriously within Philadelphia because there are a lot of alternative photographers in this city all of whom are pretty eager to share their knowledge and demo what they do. There is this a really beautiful community I found that comes together and has created things like halide, and other places as well. I hope that anybody who wants to learn learns it, and people continue to pass it down to the people who want to learn. 

There's a lot of joy in the process, there's a lot of pain and irritation and it takes a lot to learn but it's really cool and there's nothing like it when you see the results and you get to meet amazing people along the way.

How did you get involved in Halide? What does it mean to you to have access to this community space, seeing other people work on their stuff? What it like when people ask you what you are doing?

Halide has been this tremendous gift and resource. I wouldn't be doing any of this if it wasn't for the creation of this darkroom, the creation of the organization. It could have been done but it would have been a lot harder to do it. It would have taken a lot longer than it already has and there would have been a lot more road bumps and much more pain and aggravation and not this beautiful wonderful space we have, and not these wonderful beautiful people I've been able to meet. It absolutely has one hundred percent made a giant impact on me being able to express myself in a timely manner, get this work going, and then having people that are interested and wanting to learn more. 

I feel very honored that people are coming up to me and asking more about my process. There is this really great feeling that I get and it’s nice to be able to talk to like minded people who are interested in it and want to learn more and we all share this same sort of passion. We all want to help each other accomplish the goal and it's a nice thought a nice feeling, it's been a tremendous gift being able to work here.

I think everyone here wants to help each other accomplish their artistic goals. I wouldn't have been able to do anything that I have without Halide in general, without Andrea, Amanda, or any of the Drexel crew that has helped along the way, my mother and father encouraging my art and encouraging me to pursue what I love, and I just love that we have such a strong bond in art in the artistic community here, it's really great, and none of it would have happened if it weren't for like dozens of people along the way.

Talk about your upcoming show, your work, what you hope people experience at the show?

The show is on April 14th. At 6pm. The show is going to be the culmination of all that palladium work, all palladium portraiture at Wanderlife Gallery, owned by Beth  Dombkowski, another person within the artistic community I could say a lot about. She's enabled me to do more or less what I want and trusts my vision. It'll be 9 or so pieces of palladium prints being shown along with (Halide co-founder) Dale Rio so she will be joining me. I believe she will be doing palladium work as well. It would be awesome for everyone to come out and see it. It’s going to be a great show. Please come and see the show and support your local art community. Always be willing to share your knowledge and open up to people because you don't know how they are in turn going to be able to help you realize your own visions.

Jules Victor will be showing his latest work along with work by Halide co-founder Dale Rio at Wanderlife Gallery. Opening Reception Friday, April 14th 6-9pm.