a blast of photo from the past

Wetplate Photography in the 21st Century

Fred

Keliy

Phalaenopsis Orchid in Black Painted Vase

Quail Eggs

Flowers on Ledge of Eric's Fence

Tamara Leaning Against a Tree

Jessica, a Reclining Portrait

Jessica

Self-Portrait with Boa

Portrait, and Self Portrait Against Eric's Shed

Eric's Shed, East Hampton

Portrait of Karen by Keliy Anderson-Staley

Self Portrait, Dorsal View

Phalaenopsis Orchids in Tall Glass Beaker

Here are a few of my wetplate collodion photographs (quarter plate, full plate and mammoth plates) from the workshops I've taken in the past 2 years at "The Center for Alternative Photography" in New York City and in East Hampton, NY.

What an amazing feeling to be so hands-on again in a darkroom with tin and glass plates of all sizes brewing in silver nitrate baths, with eagerly awaiting students.

What an intense process it is: the wet-plate process is no misnomer, it can be no longer than whole minutes from start to finish.

From the coating of collodion on the glass or tin plates, to the adhesion of silver nitrate molecules to collodion creating the wet emulsion on which the image will be exposed, to 25-second exposures of attentive and braced-models, to the development and fixing of the wet plates in darkroom trays immediately after exposure...

The rush! I cannot wait until the next class begins.