Biography

Blade Gillissen is a full-time faculty member and department Chair at the School of Photography at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California. He has taught classes in basic photography, view camera, lighting, product, advanced darkroom techniques, the zone system, and alternative processes since 1998. He has a special interest in historical processes and has worked extensively with gum bichromate printing, platinum printing, and pinhole photography. Blade also works as a consultant, technical writer, and editor, most notably as a technical consultant for Photography, the textbook by Barbara London and John Upton. Before becoming an educator, he owned and operated a commercial photography business that specialized in product, lifestyle, and portrait photography. Blade is also an avid collector of photographic prints and rare photographic books.