Another wonderful 5 hour evening of making tintypes. I love the slowness and the beauty of the process. You have lots of time to think, plan and dream. I have always loved having quiet time to dream maybe that is why being a nighttime security guard for 25 years has been a good fit. Wet plate Collodion photography is such a personal, quiet, meditative art form. I am growing to really love it.
Thought a lot of my 10-15 year wet plate project KANATA tonight. It is very daunting. It is impossible to photograph a country, especially one as huge as Canada.! How can that be done? How can you do it in wet plate? Even harder still how can you do it in ultra large format? Daunting is probably too weak a word!
The only way I know of getting things done with my limited talent and skill is to work harder, work my tail off, work till I drop. I will do that with KANATA and see what happens. I would rather reach big and fail than do nothing and live with what might have been. Failure is much easier to deal with compared to emotions like regret. I was planning to start in 2 or 3 years, I think instead I need to push up that start date to September 2020!! I will be making shitty technical photos to start with but got to get this ball rolling, am running out of lifespan here, 56 and counting down!
Here are tonight’s efforts. Photos made on Gerry Collodion (alcohol no ether), The Speed Graphic with 178mm Ektar lens at f2.5.. Vinegar development, exposures from 5 second to 30 seconds as the light died. Last picture was 30 seconds, made at 2135hrs.
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| Last effort as the sun set, 30 seconds |
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| Detail, a bit brighter than real life |
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| Washing plates in darkroom 2 |
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| Red beaming light from my darkroom headlamp, CYCLOPS like! |
Today's wet plate
