World Wet Plate Day 2018.... Was it just me?

World Wet Plate Day is an opportunity for the global community of wet plate artists to celebrate their medium by making and sharing pictures made on a specific date: usually the first Saturday in May.

It's a good way to kickstart some springtime activity for those of us who tend to make fewer plates in the winter.  Last Year Annie Haggarty 'christened' her new studio/darkroom by making some plates for WPD  and this year I decided it was time I made a properly big plate: the full 12"x15".

I had some glass cut to size, I'd made the helper tray and silver sensitising tank, and amassed the necessary £300-worth(!)  of silver nitrate needed, I just needed an impetus to get started. Wet Plate Day is also the start of the bank holiday weekend in the UK so I had some free time.

12"x15" is quite an increase in scale from whole plate or 10"x8" . It's roughly the same as A3 so it's more than twice as big.  You use a LOT of collodion on each pour - even if you don't drip any from the edges and the weight and sheer unwieldy size makes it quite an effort.  Pouring isn't as difficult as might be expected. The bigger puddle flows more controllably than on a small plate somehow but you do need to avoid letting it spill over the edges or you lose a lot very quickly.  The collodion takes a little longer to 'set up' - that is to become slightly tacky so it doesn't come off in the silver- probably because there's a lot of ether about (ventilation is very important!)

I made some test exposures recently using one of the oak trees in the garden.  I love the little micro-environments around the bases; full of ferns, ivy and grasses and the super detail of a big plate is ideal to render this stuff. Here's my first 12"x15" Ambrotype:

this will do for a first attempt at an ultra-large format ambrotype.

My 12x15" camera has a 520mm Berthiot Paris 'Special Aviation' lens which is pretty fast (f/6.3) and very crisp as you'd expect from a reconnaissance lens. -It's no swirly romantic Petzval!  It has a character all of its own and is very rewarding and inspiring to use.  Now to upload it to the World Wet Plate Day site...

.. Except it doesn't seem to exist for 2018!
2017 and previous years are all there at http://www.wetplateday.org but nothing, not even a date for this year. Shame.  Never mind, it made me get out and make the work which is the important part.

Update: 28th May 2018: The Wet Plate Day site now says "currently moving servers" and there's some stuff on social media  about next year: May 4th 2019 so I guess this year was a bit of a hiatus for the organisers. Hopefully next year it will be back in full -(and on a proper website as I don't succumb to the tyranny of F**ebook or similar stuff ;-)

Some final thoughts on ULF (ultra large format) collodion:
It IS worth the aggravation and expense: A really big ambrotype is an astonishing thing, even when made by my inexpert hands. Exposure tests can be made with smaller plates (once you've poured a big plate, smaller ones suddenly seem much easier !).  Glass cleanliness and good collodion are even more important, as old collodion can easily shrink by 2.5%.  -which doesn't sound much until you realise that across 15 inches it means a split of more than 9mm.

I made more 12x15 plates over the bank holiday weekend. There will be a series on the trees and the things growing on and around them later this summer. - here are a few samples: