Yes….. Wet Plate just might be my new love. It takes a lot longer to do that shooting with large format, I like slowing down.
One of the more fascinating aspects of the process is that the collodion is mostly sensitive to ultraviolet light. This is challenging because the colors being photographed are rendered differently than with traditional panchromatic films. Blue things, like the deep blue beads in the last image or blue eyes are rendered as light objects and the wood table I was photographing on absorbed UV light. Also, light meters don’t work for determining exposure. When I asked Dale how you figure the exposures he said “Years of experience”. Well here we go, I got years,… I hope. The exposures for the images here were between 10 and 16 seconds with the lenses wide open.
My next step is to start putting the pieces together. I have a camera and lenses but the rest has to be built from the ground up. This includes a plate holder for the camera, developing equipment, and the chemistry (which I will mix myself). Oh and clearance from the lady of the house to have the chemistry in the house. Remember, this process is from the 1850’s – how safe do you think chemistry was back then?
