Back In the Saddle Again.

Well, the long wait is over...not that anyone was really waiting. I guess my hiatus from wet-plate is what is really over, and to prove it, I have new images to post. After taking some time off (probably more than I should have) I dusted off my old darkroom tent, mixed up a new batch of silver bath and headed down to the Village of Fairport to make a few plates.

Although I am not ecstatic with the outcome of all my images, I am happy to get back into the swing of things....and...as it turns out, it looks like I finally fixed the light leak in my camera that was plaguing me at the end of last fall. I also realized that I may need to buy some more chemistry and mix up a new batch of collodion. Mine is really starting to age and I think it is effecting the clarity and overall success of my plates.

With that being said...here are a few of the new images.

Ahhhhhh....Spring!

It's been a long, lonely winter. But, now that the snow is gone, I am excited to get back out on the road with my tent and shoot some more plates. As soon as I do, I will post my progress!

New Photos. New Leak.

With the weather starting to turn, it's getting harder and harder to get out on the road. I don't mind clouds...I actually prefer them, but wind and rain are no good. I fear my tent would not hold under harsh conditions and I don't wish to test my theory. With that being said, I am very excited to get a nice blanket of snow. I fully intend to find a nice afternoon after the snow has fallen to get out and grab a few plates.

So, here are some of my latest efforts.





On a sad note, the light leak in my camera is back. On my last outing (most of the plates are varnished and still drying...I should have examples online soon) the leak reappeared about midway through my session. I think it may be worse than the fist time. The fact that it was a bight sunny day with tones of light didn't help the issue. When I got back to the studio, I tested my camera and the leak was very small...so the direct light is obviously exacerbated the issue. I basically took the whole camera apart again, and taped it up. This time I did a very through job. I even taped up my plate holders.

Hopefully it will have worked. I guess I won't know until i go out and shoot again.

Sprung A Leak

Been busy with many side projects the past few weeks and had a light leak issue with my Graflex Speed Graphics camera. However, I was able to get out and grab few photos.

If you take a look at the image on the left, you can see a strange smudge looking shape on the right hand side of the plate. That's what the light leak is doing to my plates. Almost all my exposures had this issue. Some were a little better, others were much worse. The leak also seemed to create a slight fogging effect over the entire plate making it look dull or muted.

To fix the my camera, I took it apart, located the leak and taped it up. It was kind of a smash and grab job, but it was the best I could do. After I "repaired" my camera, I needed to test it. I wasn't sure if my craftsmanship was sufficient enough to solve my problem and the idea of going out on the road to test it didn't sit well with me. If thing's didn't work as I had planned and the leak still existed, that would have been a long and wasted trip. So, I did the next best thing. Well, going into school to use the studio would have been the next best thing, but I decided to turn my bathroom into a darkroom. I covered up the window with blackout cloth, hung my red LED head lamp from the shower and did the sensitizing and developing in the tub. My bathroom/darkroom actually worked really well and I seemingly fixed my light leak (for now).

I also experimented with tin (well actually I think they are sheets of aluminum) instead of using black glass. The tin is nice because it's lighter and you can carry a ton of it, plus you don't need to polish it because it comes with a plastic covering that you simply peel off and then pour on your collodion...pretty nice. Although the ease of use with the tin is great, I still prefer the black glass. I feel the blacks are deeper and the tonal range is richer on back glass, plus it feels much more substantial in your hand. There is always something to be said for materiality.

Either way, I have a lot of the tin and I will continue to shoot both glass and tin from here on out.

Here are a couple tintypes from my backyard.

A Day At The Beach

This past weekend I packed up the gear and headed on down to Charlotte Beach. Over a four hour period, I shot ten plates and got some great photos. Here are a couple of images.





The day was pretty successful even though I got hassled by the Monroe County Parks department about setting up my tent on by the boardwalk.

The First Plates

Well...here they are! They are by no means the best images I have ever produced, but they are proof that my darkroom works!

Success!

I finally gout out on the road this past week and tested my mobile darkroom. On Friday morning, I packed up all my gear and ventured out to Cobbs Hill Park. Seeing as I was going alone, I needed to streamline this process, and that includes minimizing the amount of things I am carting along, while still having everything I need.

This is everything I ended up with...

My camera, tripod, tent, chemistry, a few work stations, a portable makeshift darkroom sink and an array of miscellanies items which I won't list here.



I was able to secure everything to a luggage cart with a bungee strap and an old dog leash and wheel all my gear to the designated spot. In theory, this would work well....and, it actually did. I had no issues rolling through the park!



Once I got to my spot, I popped up the tent and set up all my workstations. I had three in all.







The fist station was the collodion pouring/fixing station. This was done outside the tent for ventilation reasons as well as light accessibility. I could easily see the collodion as I poured it on the plates and I didn't have to worry about the ether fumes filling the tent.



Once I coated the plate, I entered the darkroom to the next station...the silver bath.



For the most part, I sat in the darkroom while the plate was submerged in the silver bath, but there were a few times when I went back outside to set up my camera and what not.

After I exposed the plate in my camera, I would return to the darkroom to develop it. This was done over my tub sink.



Then it was back outside to fix the image.

Everything worked pretty seamlessly, with no major issues or catastrophes. I shot a total of eleven (11) plates over about a four hour period. At first, I was having issues with my plates fogging and it took a bit of trial and error to get the right exposure times down. I also made slight adjustments to my sensitizing/developing process by closing the flap on my ruby lith window and using a red LED head lamp as my safe light. This change, coupled with the shorter exposure times and using a developer that had grain alcohol in it did the trick!

Six of those eleven plates I am pretty pleased with. I already dried and varnished them so once they are all set, I will scan them and post them online.