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!

2016 Collodion workshops at UCA Farnham

This year's workshops were a great success: The list was 100% oversubscribed again so we we ran two days. We were working with half plate (8 x 6.5 inch) glass and the Watson studio camera I've recently acquired: - It has a quick-slide ground glass which makes it easy to check focus and quickly insert the plate holder. No doubt a very useful system in a busy studio in the 1860s.  The time it takes to set everything up and prepare plates means that on these days we make simple, straightforward portraits of each other. The process is magical enough to create wonderful images while everyone is getting to grips with the techniques involved.

Everyone hard at work cleaning glass plates ready to make ambrotypes (collodion on glass)

Here are the results from Monday:

Quite a lot of faults on this plate: Peeling collodion, unevenly applied developer
and over exposed/developed areas which have solarised. - It all looks great though!

Hayden was Champion Plate Pourer for Monday. He both poured this plate and
appeared in it. Credit must go to whoever  framed the shot up. It looks terrific.

One of the joys of this process is the 'happy accidents'. The solarised exposure
and swirly pour marks  make this really interesting.

I love it when people add incongruous elements to the picture.
Madi made this surreal image.

A huge vote of thanks must go to Annie Haggarty who volunteered to help and was tireless and indispensable in a multitude of roles, most notably as the "Kitchen Roll Fairy". - Always there when needed and made things run so much more smoothly. Thanks Annie!


On Wednesday, due (once again) to popular demand we ran a second workshop. Despite the weather being horrible outside we managed some good exposures using nothing but the daylight coming through the window.  Later in the day, we started to supplement the daylight with a UV -enhanced flashgun. This worked so well that I  clearly need to do some more experiments with UV-flash. I'll report back on these pages when I have made some tests.

Agnes was brave enough to be first subject. Once everyone sees how good you look in a
collodion portrait they all want to do it, but you have to have faith to be the first.

Natalie is on the DFSA course and has an interest in the process.
She joined us for the day.  Welcome!

Lauren went for the surreal option- and it really works! - inspired...

With John, we followed Julia Margaret Cameron's practice of shrouding
his shoulders in black velvet to concentrate on his head. The result
speaks for itself.

Using the UV-enhanced flashgun evened up the light and compensated for the falling light levels.

The tone shift caused by collodion's spectral sensitivity  (it doesn't respond to the red
end of the spectrum but does record well into the ultraviolet) transforms some portraits
more than others. Paula looks very different!

It's tempting to go for the weird and wonderful - and we've got some amazing results
here, but simple, straight portraits can also be very powerful.
This plate of Ashleigh is a beautiful example.

Again, thanks to Annie for the fetching, carrying and general facilitating - and especially the tea and Creme Egg! :-)  Well done to everyone who attended on both days. These great pictures are the result of  team efforts: Everyone contributed by cleaning glass, pouring plates, operating the camera, holding reflectors and of course sitting very, very still.

Silverprint are moving - again!

15 February 2016 Silverprint have just issued a press release announcing their decision to close the London Road premises and relocate to Dorset. See the details below: “Today 85% of customers are purchasing either through the Website, via email or phone.  However, as a result of the growth in this area of the business, the current premises had proven to become unsuitable to operate from, especially when handling the increased order volumes. Following many months of review,  the decision has been made to relocate Silverprint to Warehouse Premises in Poole, Dorset. Unfortunately in relation to this, the London Store at 120 London Road will close this Thursday 18 February at Midday, for the final time.  Due to the amount of lines offered (currently over 3,500) and the space required, it was considered not possible to retain a smaller Retail Shop in London. During the relocation, Silverprint will make every effort to limit any disruption to customer orders. The main number 02076200169 and Website www.silverprint.co.uk will remain Live throughout the changes and every effort will be made to keep customers updated.  Customers are also welcome to visit the new Premises, as a Trade Counter will be in operation.”

Research into trauma experienced during the American Civil War

Hello,

My name is Erin Solomons, and I'm pursuing a PhD (practice-based) in Photography at UCA. My project is about how trauma is experienced and remembered in the present. One of my case studies is from the American Civil War period. By using the wet collodion process, which documented the War, I'm experimenting with opening up a discussion about trauma, the body, and landscape. Older works, I've made, have dealt with identity, domesticity, and the American West. My work can be viewed at:

www.erinsolomons.com

Please feel free to contact me.

Best wishes,

Erin

Call for authors..

After a bit of a hiatus I've managed to find some time to get to grips with the Blogger software and invite some more people to be contributing authors. If you get an email soon it's because I've invited you.  Why viewing is open to all, being an author gives you the ability to upload images and text to the blog, and to share your ideas with everyone. You do need a gmail account to do this.

If you'd like to be on the author list, please send me an email at my UCA email address and I'll invite you. - simple as that!

Peter.

Second UCA Collodion Demo - by popular demand. 19th March 2015

As the first demo day was 100% oversubscribed I really had no choice but to run another one! This was every bit as enjoyable as the first with some great images. We made quarter and half-plate ambrotypes on the multi-format plate camera - Thanks again to Greg Jones for doing lots of the unglamorous jobs which made it all run so well - and thanks to all those of you who took part.

Tomm with his beautiful little Sanderson 1/4 plate camera. - which he later used to make an ambrotype.

There was a definite Julia Margaret Cameron theme to today's images...

Mim definitely 'channeling' Julia Margaret Cameron.

This one was made by Tomm on his Sanderson. Interesting to see the different look generated by this lens.

Rather a lot of technical defects in this one, but collodion defects are often so beautiful nobody minds too much.

(most of) UCA Collodion group 19.3.15. "Mim woz 'ere"...!

As with the 9th March session I'll make proper scans and prints and display the images in a proper show in G30 later in the year. - Peter.

First Collodion demo at UCA

We ran the first wet-plate collodion demo day at UCA on Monday 9th March.  I'll update this into a full report later (the event was massively oversubscribed so we're doing it all again next week) but meantime here are the images made by those who took part. Thanks to you all for your enthusiasm and entering into the spirit of the portraits so well. Special thanks to Annie for bringing such good props!

These are all quarter-plate ambrotypes (collodion on glass) at exposures of between 20 and 80 seconds...

Everybody entered into the spirit of the thing!

Dave has officially the Best Beard For WetPlate in UCA.

I'll make high definition scans available to you all and once we've exhibited the original ambrotypes in an exhibition in G30 you can all keep your portraits.  - Peter.

Don't forget to see the Demo 2 pictures from 19th March too!

Getting serious with collodion

Following the workshops at Lacock last summer and Double Negative this spring I have been waiting for the UCA holidays to get the time to start making collodion images in my own darkroom.  While it's possible to work in a portable tent darkroom or even out of the back of a car (as Richard Cernan Jones and Sally Mann have shown) you need to be very organised and have your technique well sorted. It's definitely better to have as much space as possible when you start 'solo'..

I've been assembling the various bits of equipment for this for a long time. Much of it is the kind of stuff used in other alt. processes; the main differences being the use of glass. 2mm picture frame glass is favoured as it's in plentiful supply, though original period plates are often a little thinner.  Plate holders and racks have to be sourced or made and glass cut and cleaned.  (NB: I will write a collodion guide sometime in the future, where I'll list everything needed and how the process is done in detail. There are plenty of guides available already but by writing my own I will help my own understanding).  The silver nitrate bath requires quite a bit of maintenance: Filtering, 'sunning' and testing for pH and specific gravity and dedicated glass beakers, filter funels and bottles are needed. Another investment is a small fridge. I've never had this luxury before, keeping film etc, in the ordinary kitchen fridge, but collodion gives off fumes which would taint the food.  I'd NEVER store any photo chemistry alongside food. It's just not a good idea. - especially when a tabletop fridge sells for less than the price of a box of B&W paper.

First plates:

I used my Thornton Pickard quarter plate for initial tests. This camera is a single lens reflex design with a wonderful lens. (I'm holding it in my self portrait from the John Brewer workshop). It has the advantages of being quick to set up, compose and focus, plus the wooden plate holders are already designed to take glass plates. Being quarter plate (3.25" x 4.25") the plates are small and therefore cheap: Not much collodion per image!  The disadvantages are that small plates are more difficult to pour and the plate holder proved difficult to load with gloved hands. I've since modified it.  I set up a nice simple image and worked on it.

One of my first tests.  Quarter plate. ambrotype (collodion positive on glass)

Film speed is widely described as impossible to define. It varies with the age of the collodion, the recipe used, the developer and the UV content of the light.  Conventional light metering is therefore not much use. The method is to guess an exposure, then adjust based on the result of that. I was lucky to get an image first time, and with a couple of mild tweaks I got a good exposure.

Gremlins strike!
Before I had time to feel pleased with my initial success the problems started.  Moving the camera to attempt a tribute to Fox Talbot's ladder and haystack image I set up a picture of the ladder against the hedge. The result, while striking isn't what I had in mind!  I want to be able to make really clean, blemish free images and then introduce these artifacts at will.

Stairway to Heaven?  A catalogue of collodion defects.

The difficulty I had was suffering multiple problems at once. I had dirt or other chemical contamination on the plate causing "oysters" - marks on the edges, I had problems getting the developer to coat the plate evenly and I had flecks of dried collodion in the freshly poured surface. Couple these with difficulties with exposure (my instinct was to give too much exposure and develop for too long: I've spent so long with traditional film it's hard to deliberately "under"expose.!)

This also highlights the problems of working alone. With an expert by your side, the problems are correctly identified and a solution suggested. It's easy to do what you're told and imagine you're learning more than you are. On your own you have to work methodically and make lots of notes. - I should know this: I tell students to do it all the time!  Eventually I managed a couple of good, clean plates including this one of "Buttercup" my vintage Sunbeam bicycle:

Sunbeam bicycle. a quarter plate Ambrotype

A week or two later Anna joined me for a couple of days and we worked through all the same problems: Frustrating when I though I'd solved them. The big difficulty we had was getting the developer to flow nicely over the plate. Eventually after many experiments we discovered that by adding a little more (20% or so) alcohol to the developer (we were using John Brewer's excellent pre-mixed dev solution) it flowed much more evenly. We also diluted the dev quite a bit which gave more control (in hot weather the image 'comes up' almost too fast to control). The last modification was to adjust the safelighting. It's vital to be able to see what's happening...

One of the cleaner images we managed. Anna's vintage plate camera has a great lens, (uncoated of course) which gives this soft effect when photographing into the light. This is a whole plate Ambrotype.

My second guest this summer was Greg Jones. Another UCA friend and colleague, Greg has lectured on the history of photography and was keen to witness the process. Of course it couldn't just be a demonstration: I got him pouring plates and sitting for a portrait. He also made one of me:

Ambrotype half plates

The picture above shows how Ambrotypes work. The image is a very thin negative on the glass plate, which when viewed against a dark backing becomes a positive. Most of us have experienced this effect with conventional film negatives.  Ambrotype images will print, albeit with some difficulty. Skill is needed to bring out the tones in what is effectively an under-exposed neg. (scanning is much easier but the temptation to manipulate the curve is hard to resist. Note that few published Ambrotypes look as good as the scans posted online!) The emulsion is extremely fine-grained so detail is generally restricted to the quality of the lens. The two portraits above were taken with a Petzval lens taken from an old magic lantern. They are wonderfully sharp at the point of focus and have a curved field of focus unlike the flat plane of modern lenses. Used wide open (magic lantern lenses seldom have aperture controls) the exposures were 1 second at f/3.5.

Greg Jones 2014.  note the diagonal lines caused by the collodion forming ridges as the excess was drained from the plate.

A rare Carte de Visite

This is slightly off -piste for this site but it's such a great find I wanted to share it: A 50p carte de visite from a local antique shop. I first noticed the slightly odd pose; it was only on closer inspection that I realised it's a double exposure and the chap is actually deep in conversation with himself.

This is relatively rare but by no means unheard of. Cartes de visite were cheap enough for people to have fun with them (many albums have matching back views on the page following a portrait for example).

If you look closely at the background you can see the join. These images were typically made using a sliding plate over the camera lens, covering half the image at a time. On this occasion the camera has moved ever so slightly so the two sides are misaligned. It's an easy enough effect to do: You just need a plate which slides to exactly the same point in front of the lens from either side. (note that it doesn't have to be the centre of the frame, as demonstrated by this picture).
Cokin filters used to sell a device for doing this (Cokin no. 346 Double Exposure Mask) and there are plenty on auction sites if you fancy trying it. Alternatively a bit of ingenuity with some cardboard should do the trick!

Videos from George Eastman House

Here's a nice set of short (5 min or so) videos from George Eastman House, Kodak's archive and historical centre. Each gives a brief overview of the process with footage of people (usually Mark Osterman) actually making an image. They are very short and sweet but they are a good place to start if you are researching a process and don't know what's involved. If you haven't come across a Woodburytype for example, This explains it quickly and clearly...

1. The Daguerreotype 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmm90yhhuJM&list=PL4F918844C147182A

2. The Collodion process

www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PAAJZRbn8&index=2&list=PL4F918844C147182A

3.  The Albumen print

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq1RvahEPSk&list=PL4F918844C147182A&index=3

4. The Woodburytype process

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWAE2uBLRz4&index=4&list=PL4F918844C147182A

5.  The Platinum print

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DFZ3wfft44&list=PL4F918844C147182A&index=5

6. The Gelatin Silver print

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSBFrPWPS80&index=6&list=PL4F918844C147182A