Need to get back studying and making wet plates in studio. Got to finish a room I plan to work from near the studio. Painting this week, then a bit of cleaning and setting up. Hope to be done by weeks end. Then its wet plate time!
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| Studying Wet Plate, Quinn Jacobsen book, my bible |
Am going to be able to order my Silver Nitrate from a chemical supplier in China!! Got to love the cost saving there. Will be buying lots of this stuff over the next 15 years. I will test the initial 500 grams soon. Later should be ordering 1000-2000 grams at a time, maybe more. When I am making larger plates, will need lots!
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| Silver Nitrate Powder, used in the sensitizing of plates |
I think of ambrotypes as capturing an object or person INSIDE THE GLASS. When you look through the glass to see the image on the other side it is like that object or person is ALIVE inside the glass. It is beyond perfect, beyond beautiful That is why I am working to learn wet plate. That is the goal, to capture things/people/places forever INSIDE THE GLASS.
It reminds of me of the glass paper weight in "1984" that Winston Smith values so much. Here is the excerpted section of that brilliant novel where he finds the paper weight.
-------The tiny interior of the shop was in fact uncomfortably full, but there was almost nothing in it of the slightest value. The floor space was very restricted, because all round the walls were stacked innumerable dusty picture frames. In the window there were trays of nuts and bolts, worn-out chisels, penknives with broken blades, tarnished watches that did not even pretend to be in going order, and other miscellaneous rubbish. Only on a small table in the corner was there a litter of odds and ends—lacquered snuffboxes, agate brooches, and the like—which looked as though they might include something interesting. As Winston wandered toward the table his eye was caught by a round, smooth thing that gleamed softly in the lamplight, and he picked it up.
It was a heavy lump of glass, curved on one side, flat on the other, making almost a hemisphere. There was a peculiar softness, as of rainwater, in both the color and the texture of the glass. At the heart of it, magnified by the curved surface, there was a strange, pink, convoluted object that recalled a rose or a sea anemone.
"What is it?" said Winston, fascinated.
"That's coral, that is," said the old man. "It must have come from the Indian Ocean. They used to kind of embed it in the glass. That wasn't made less than a hundred years ago. More, by the look of it."
"It's a beautiful thing," said Winston.
"It is a beautiful thing," said the other appreciatively. "But there's not many that'd say so nowadays." He coughed. "Now, if it so happened that you wanted to buy it, that'd cost you four dollars. I can remember when a thing like that would have fetched eight pounds, and eight pounds was—well, I can't work it out, but it was a lot of money. But who cares about genuine antiques nowadays—even the few that's left?"
Winston immediately paid over the four dollars and slid the coveted thing into his pocket. What appealed to him about it was not so much its beauty as the air it seemed to possess of belonging to an age quite different from the present one. The soft, rainwatery glass was not like any glass that he had ever seen. The thing was doubly attractive because of its apparent uselessness, though he could guess that it must once have been intended as a paperweight. It was very heavy in his pocket, but fortunately it did not make much of a bulge. It was a queer thing, even a compromising thing, for a Party member to have in his possession. Anything old, and for that matter anything beautiful, was always vaguely suspect. The old man had grown noticeably more cheerful after receiving the four dollars. Winston realized that he would have accepted three or even two.----------
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| The paper weight from the 1984 version of the novel |
Took these as we were about the leave the campground near Dinosaur Provincial Park. The leaves and trees were truly beautiful. Even Dim Sum will miss his cage!
Long difficult exhausting day. Not much to do for it. This image is on black glass. Funny how wetplate is like that, one day everything works, next day nada.
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| On black glass |
The last panic prints of the day. The light is now gone. The warmth of the day turns to the cold of dusk.
Same exposure time but the sun is setting.
Hope to return next year to Dinosaur Provincial Park. I want to make 12x20 panoramics with the 16x20 Chamonix camera.
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| Various angles on the viewpoint overlooking part of the Dinosaur Provincial Park |
Pulled out all my available collodion.
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| Various Collodions I had this last trip |
At a lovely FREE campground near Dinosaur Provincial Park. Staying 2 nights, in this quiet beautiful olace, will photograph the lovely trees.
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| The trailer almost ready to make ambrotypes |
Kind of like this weird ass composition. This clothes line poll at an abandoned home sort of became symbolic of Sibbald. A cross hanging over a ghost like town filled with good people (11) but on its last legs.
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| Cloth line cross at back of house |
In my young and inexperienced wet plate career my favorite collodion is this one. G collodion with no added ether, love it best when it is slightly aged orange!! Sweet stuff.
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| Gerry or G Collodion |
Moo moo moo, found a new darkroom trailer friend in Sibbald. Also a glass to pot developer with. Ok enough playing, got to make me some plates, 2 more hours of light.
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| My new mooing darkroom friend |
Clear glass and black glass 4x5 in Sinaloa Alberta, population 11.
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| Old abandoned farming house, once owned by an somewhat albino man who placed the banjo |
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| Fanny/Freddy and the overnight parking area. |
Am now boondocking in Sibbald Alberta. Population here is 11 people!!! Trying to take photos in high winds today which is near impossible.
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| First 8x10 attempts at Sibbald Alberta, population 11 |
In Sibbald, Alberta tonight, boondocking. The population here is 11. Will try doing some wet plate images of this near ghost town tomorrow. This project promises to include some interesting locations. The view is from Fanny’s (the motorhome) side door.
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| Where we parked the first night in Sibbald |
More Plates from September 24 in Prince Albert National Park.
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| Dim Sum looking for something to kill |
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| Temp and humidity varies widely during a day in the trailer |
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| 4x5 plates |
I just made 2 gallery submissions to the main gallery at CASA in Lethbridge, Alberta. It is a nice facility with an CARFAC artist fee of $...
