I Wear polarisation: Cyanotypes on cloth in a new exhibition.

Lauren Isaacs and Veronica Ward-Horner have created a multimedia piece as part of the INTERMEDIA show staged by UCA Arts & Media at Farnham.
Seven dresses have been treated with cyanotype chemistry and then printed with individually made imagery to reflect their role.

"The seven dresses represent respectively; the girlhood rejection of femininity sumptuous protest of the grotesque feminine, duality of the virgin slut, the hollow superficial female ego, the gift of patriarchy and security, the profit of "girl power" and Mrs. Obedient subordinate. The film projected in the centre uses clips from TV and film which mirror and compliment aspects of each of these dresses"

As well as being a complex and thought-provoking artwork the techniques involved should be interesting to everyone who works in this area.  Do go along if you can: Admission is free.

James Hockey Gallery

UCA Farnham Campus

Falkner Road 

Farnham 

Surrey 

GU9 7DS

Tuesday 26 April – Thursday 5 May 2016

Monday to Friday 10am - 5pm

Saturday 10am - 4pm

Closed Sunday 

Starting Collodion 5

The next day, Sunday.

What a great day I had on Saturday.  We spent a lot of the day in the darkroom discussing the process.  I ended the day feeling inspired and confident to have a go on my own and I fully intended that Sunday would be spent practicing.  BUT, Saturday night brought with it a light headed kind of tiredness that was unpleasant, Sunday morning I got up with an awful headache, I'm pretty sure that spending too much time in the fume filled darkroom had caused this, I even missed the uni trip to London on Monday.  Lesson learned; ventilation must be considered for next time.

I think it is important to get the balance between fear and respect right when dealing with these chemicals.  They can be very nasty but with common sense, vigilance and respect this process is going to be a real joy.

Starting Collodion 4

First Plate!
Saturday.

Peter offered to come to my house to help see me through the first day, this was very generous of him and made the most enormous difference to my progress - Thanks Peter.

David Summerill also came along and all of the images are taken by him - Thanks Dave.

The glass plates need to be cut to size with the glass cutter and a ruler then the rough edges should be smoothed with the diamond file, rinsed, dried then thoroughly cleaned using the plate cleaner and cotton wool pad, then polished until completely spotless with the cloth.  Using a Q tip I painted a thin line of albumen solution around the edges of the plate.
The plate is now ready to be used.

Before I could pour the plate, the camera had to be set up, focus checked and aperture etc chosen.  This all has to be done prior to pouring the plate as the image has to be taken and the plate developed whilst the collodion is still wet ( wet plate process)
I poured the collodion on to the plate.  The idea is to get a smooth, even coating on the plate.  Mine was a bit lumpy, wrinkled and didn't really cover the whole plate.  Oh well, have to start somewhere!
Once the collodion has been poured, it needs to form a skin but NOT dry, to check for this I touched the corner of the plate gently with my finger tip to see if it left an imprint.
Now into the silver bath for 3 minutes
When the plate goes into the silver bath it's time to turn out the light and set the timer for 3 minutes.  Red safelight is now all I can use.
After the 3 minutes the plate was lifted from the silver bath, the back wiped with kitchen roll to get as much excess silver off as possible and loaded into the plate holder.
I took the plate out to the camera and made my image.
The plate was then brought back to the darkroom, removed from the holder and developed.  This was done by quickly and carefully pouring a small amount of developer across the plate.  This is by far the trickiest part (for me) the dev. must cover the plate, mustn't sit still on the plate, shouldn't be poured in one spot, only use the correct amount etc. The developer is stopped by pouring distilled water across the plate.  Once it's developed it needs rinsing under the tap, I found that adjusting the flow of water gradually whilst rinsing worked well and reduced the risk of blasting the film from the glass.  The plan is to rinse the plate until you can no longer see a greasy looking residue across the image.
The it was the best bit, fixing the plate.  This washes away all the undeveloped silver and leaves behind the image (a little like developing in the darkroom).

It was very exciting to see the image appear. I love the way the plate is both negative and positive.
The rest of the day was spent experimenting like this, only stopping for a bacon sandwich and tea!

Touching the plate to see if it's ready for the silver bath.

Placing the plate in the fixer (Sodium Thiosulphate)

Starting Collodion 3

Getting the space ready.

I have a large utility room attached to the garage, it has a sink and good amount of work space.  As it opens directly into the garden, getting to and from the camera quickly won't be a problem.  The room is not attached to the house so the fumes will be confined to one space.  The room has 2 large windows which I covered with some black out curtain liner (£5 per metre form amazon).  Although this was cheap it is very effective at blocking the light.  I fixed it to the window using Duck Tape.
I have a plug in red safe light in the dark room so I just used this, it seems to be sufficient.

The Silver Bath has been filled with the newly mixed solution but before it can be used it needs to be 'excited' (insert pun here!)
This is done by pouring collodion on to a plate and lowering it in to the Silver Bath there it must stay overnight.  This releases iodides in to the bath.

This was all done on Friday so that I could begin on Saturday - it's sooo exciting!

Setting up, nearly ready!

Starting Collodion 2

Camera.
I already have a 5x4 MPP camera that I picked up on eBay last year.  It was a bit mouldy and tatty but I gave it a bath and let it air for a few weeks and it seems to be fine.  It came with a schneider 135 lens which also seems ok.  I'm sure I'll 'need' a collection of old brass lenses soon, but for now this will have to suffice!

Silver bath.
At around £70 online I decided to have a go at making my own.  I ordered A4 sheets of 3mm black perspex and a small bottle of Tensol 12 glue. All for under £30.  Using (or sweet talking someone else to) 'Illustrator', I got the design drawn up ready to take to the laser cutter at UCA, more begging was involved to get help with using the cutter but eventually I came home with an airfix style kit ready to glue together. That glue honks!  The gluing was not as easy as I had hoped, to get the box watertight took 2 days.  I was reasonably pleased with the outcome but not convinced that it was up to scratch so I just bought 1 from John Brewer.  I know it's a bit of a cop out but at least I can be sure it won't leak! I've kept the home made 1 for another day.

Chemicals.
I ordered the following from John Brewer and spend around £135

Silver Nitrate Crystals
Positive Collodion (ready mixed)
Positive Developer (concentrated)
Plate Cleaner

Fixer (Sodium Thiosulphate) Amazon or Ebay under £10

Distilled Water £3 for 5lt  (I bought 2)

IDA (Industrial Denatured Alcohol) used for mixing and preparing a variety of things.  This can only be bought with a license.  This is free and fairly simple to obtain on line.  3 litres cost about £30.

Albumen (for edging the plates) This is just egg white mixed with water.

£251 excluding the camera so far!  The rest of the list of items can be bought, begged, borrowed or made (not stollen though!)

The list was given to me by Peter Renn and has been put together from experience.  He was kind enough to mark the things that were necessary and those that may just make things easier.  These are some of the things I've collected.

Safety goggles £6
Lab jacket (silver nitrate stains everything it touches) £17
Protective rubber gloves £4 for a box of 50
Hydrometer ( beer making )  £3.50
Thermometer (beer making) £3.50
Plate drying rack, with a drip tray £10 Amazon, it's a bit big so may find a better one in the future.
Plastic funnels £1 for 3 Wilko
Unbleached coffee filters £3 Tesco
Jewellery scales £15 Amazon (you can get cheaper ones but after reading reviews I opted for better quality)
Plastic Bottles £10 for an assortment from amazon, I bought some 500ml and some 100ml but should have bought some 1000ml too.
Digital timer with no light £1 Ikea.
Cotton Wool Pads
Cotton Buds
Kitchen Roll
Jugs/Glass beakers
Clean Cloth for cleaning plates, I have got some old muslin and some put linen cloth.
Developing Trays (New black baking trays work)

Glass Plate Holder for the camera. Peter converted a film holder for me (quarter plate size). I also bought a plate holder for 5 x 4 plates £20 form ebay.
Glass plates.  Picture glass is good
Glass Cutter £10 eBay
Diamond Whet Stone for smoothing the edges of the cut glass.

Sounds off putting I know but most of this stuff only needs getting once!

Starting Collodion

I'm in my second year of a 3 year BA(Hons) Degree.  It's that time in the course where we need to begin thinking about what we want to do when we grow up. This is what I want to do.

About a year ago, as part of the course, I attended a collodion wet plate workshop. As is my way I got very enthusiastic and excited about this new (to me) form of picture making.  The desire to use wet plate collodion never left and this year, as I began to feel the precious time at uni slipping away I decided I should bite the bullet and learn this new (or old) skill.
As my tutor - Peter Renn had offered to help and support me I asked him where I should start.  He gave me a check list of 'stuff' to get.

And so began the adventure!