Wet Plate Collodion as a new year card

I love ambrotypes and for this year’s new year cards I wanted to send out a proper ambrotypes on glass plates. But how can do you copy an ambrotype? I came to a conclusion that the best way would be to make a slide reproduction of a wetplate, insert the slide reproduction in an enlarger and expose a wetplate. Sort of what I was doing for a portrait of Milan Erič. Then I’ve read a post on Petapixel that my main man Tony Richards is photographing a computer screen with his wetplate camera! In wetplate community there was a WTF reaction, but I commented it, that there is a concept for every technique and for new year cards this is the perfect technique! IMacs’s screen is 30x50cm and I downsize the projected picture to the size of a plate that is about 4×5″, so no pixel can be viewed with bare eye.
Happy new year everybody!

I took a landscape image and did the following:

projected it on a computer screen. On the right is a gelatin filter to cover the screen during developing. I have a darkroom with Internet access 😉

Set my view camera

Did the wetplate ritual and here it is! From a gay landscape image into a cool wetplate in few easy steps!

The best thing is that exposure doesn’t vary much so you can do a wetplate for a specific friend!

Head Rest for Wet Plate Collodion portraits

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Finally I have a good and solid headrest for my wetplate portraits. I was looking for a headrest and in USA they costs about 600 USD + shipping + customs. I tried to use a microphone stand and that’s useless since it’s not solid enough. Some time ago I was doing a portrait of a traditional blacksmith Miha Krištof from Maribor, Slovenia and I knew he was able to make a good headrest. It’s really good, solid and it looks slick! I payed 300 EUR, which is not cheap, but when I saw the result I was very happy. It’s an excellent investment! I’ve made this videolog to show it to you. If you want to order it as well, I can give you a contact, his wife speaks perfectly German and his apprentice speaks English as well. On the click HERE you can download patents for Head Rest from 19th Century that were gathered by Miša Keskenović. With this plans and pictures of my head rest you can find a local craftsman and order it locally.

Miha Krištof, blacksmith

head rest for wetplate portraits made by Miha Krištof

When wetplates are becoming too perfect…

I know… You think the same as I do. Wet plate collodion photographs are never perfect, they are full of dust particles, stains and so on. That’s what I love about them, but at the same time I’m trying to make it as perfect as I can. Yesterday I’ve done two wetplates of a tree. The first one, vertical one was, a perfectly exposed shot. Of course on top there are stains, but I’m intentionally using very small quantity of developer, so I know the center will be perfect, but the corners at the top will miss some developer and therefore “clouds” will apear. So the first shot, the vertical one, was perfect. I didn’t like that…

If I would want to have perfect pictures, I would stick to digital photography! I went back and underexpose the second plate for one and a half stop and over developed it. The result was foggy low contrasty image. It was so bad I wanted to wipe it off immediately, but I was in hurry to get kids from school so I left it to dry. I didn’t even wash it properly. Today I scanned it and add contrast and blacks and I’m astonished that I prefer this crappy plate, digitally fixed. How will I explain that to my wetplate mates? I guess some day I’ll need to step out of the closet…

Kodak Folding Brownie 3A, f/45, 12 seconds, developed 20 seconds.

Kodak Folding Brownie 3A, f/45, 12 seconds, developed 20 seconds.

Kodak Folding Brownie 3A, f/64, 8 seconds, developed 30 seconds.

Kodak Folding Brownie 3A, f/64, 8 seconds, developed 30 seconds.

#TreeTuesday 18.12.2012

I’m joining #TreeTuesday group on social network as an excuse to take more images. Today’s wetplate is done with Kodak Folding Brownie 3A from year 1905.

Tree Tuesday, 11.12.2012

I’m joining the Tree Tuesday project that I got inspired by http://shimmeringgrains.com/. Taken with Kodak Folding Brownie 3A and wet plate collodion technique. A FB friend posted to me a link of Modrian’s image: LINK. My camera is dating 1905 and Modrian’s image is dated 1912, just if there is any dilemma who was first…

Invitation to the exhibition Castrumfoto 2012 on a theme Disguise

I’ve been invited to participate in the Castrumfoto International Workshop 2012 that is organized since 2003. The Castrumfoto is an annual workshop for art photographers from Italy, Austria, and Slovenia organised by the Pilon Gallery from Ajdovščina under the leadership of Primož Brecelj. The results of the workshop of eleven artists will be presented on an exhibition in the Pilon Gallery, this Friday, 14.12.2012 with the opening at 19:00.

This year’s theme is A Disguise. My concept is questioning the term disguise and objectivity. I did a series of self portraits, following a dogma of photography that could be defined as un-manipulated, objective photography. I was doing a mug shot, without cloths, staring into a camera. The theme disguise comes into existence only if you see the whole series of self-portraits. For each self-portrait I’ve chosen a different camera, that is ShenHao 4×5″, Mamiya RB67, Zenza Bronica ETRS 645, Nikon D3, Kodak Folding Brownie 3A and Pentax K200. I was trying to maintain all factors that effect photography the same, only camera and a medium on which photograph will be recorded on, will be the variable in this project. I’ve chosen my friends camera Pentax K200 that records infrared specter of light, classic analog camera, digital Nikon D3 and also Wet Plate Collodion as a medium. Wet plate Collodion is sensitive to blue and ultraviolet specter of light.

The presentation will be simple, 50x70cm prints and under the prints there will be a note with characteristics of the camera and medium on which photograph was recorded.

My point here is that all this images are following dogma of photography as an objective recordings of reality, but when you put them together, the questions are arousing which one is more real. Which one is real? Just by noticing how different this self-portraits are, a viewer is faced with the fact that photography is not objective! PHOTOGRAPHY IS THE DISGUISE!

Thx to Luka Gorjup for helping me with infrared self-portrait and my wife Alenka for the help with the rest of self-portraits.

Self-portrait taken with ShenHao 4×5″ camera and wet plate collodion.

Self-portrait taken with Mamiya RB67 camera and Polaroid fp-100c.

Self-portrait taken with Folding Brownie and wet plate collodion.

Self-portrait taken with Pentax K-200, transformed so it records infrared specter of light.

Self-portrait taken with Zenza Bronica ETRS 645 camera and Efke 100 film.

Self-portrait taken with Nikon D3 camera

A description list of the camera and medium on which the photograph was taken.

Just a sketch how I was planning to present the prints on the wall. It’s not The Gallery Pilon.

Wet Plate Collodion project on current recession

short 4 minute video.

longer version 14 minutes.
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Ladies and Gentleman, let me introduce my new project, Great Depression 1912-13! I have been thinking for a long time to make a project that would incorporate wet plate collodion technique beyond the technological and aesthetic fascination. I wanted to make a concept where wetplate process would be a foundation of the concept, not a picture effect in the sense “geee, that looks so cool…”

And this is it. Project Great Depression 1912-13 is a documentary photography project where in wet plate technique I’m documenting state of a bankrupt companies with an emphasize on things that people left behind after they have been working there for decades.

Why the title Great Depression 1912-13? My aim is to make a picture series that would look old, ancient, as a document of an event that happened long, long time ago. I want that viewers will get the feeling that this sort of events happened like hundred years ago and since then society has learned the lesson and this sort of things can not happen to us, to a modern man in 21st Century.

The old bellow camera and wet plate technique is perfect to embed in pictures emotional detachment from the event. To prove my point, just think how great does it look a mugshot of Lewis Powel, the Lincon’s assassin photographed by Alexander Gardner and compare it to a contemporary mugshot of a murderer. It’s not (solely) the photographical technique that makes you feel different looking at a contemporary mug shot in comparison to a historical mugshot, it’s the knowing that murderer from a 19th Century mugshot is harmless, whereas a mugshot of a contemporary murderer is scary, since you can easily imagine that it could hurt you.

Of course in my picture series Great Recession 1912-13 I’m not hiding that this pictures are contemporary, just the opposite. I’m emphasizing the tension between the title and aesthetic elements on one side and documentary features on the other side.

I started the project in company Novoles that is about 500 meters from where I grew up. For me it’s important to start small, local and now I want to go to photograph larger stories. I have a wish list of international companies that I want to photograph, like the airport of Ciudad Real in Spain and of course Kodak company in Rochester, NY.

Let me finish with an anecdote. I’ve been photographing the entrance of Novoles and although I liked my first plate, it was full of mistakes. I’ve been working for another hour to make three technical nearly perfect photographs, but then I picked the first one. It’s perfect just as unperfected it is! And that happened to me many times!

Large images you can see on my site www.borutpeterlin.com