Long day in the trailer. I need to get in better shape if I hope to be able to do my big wet plate project, even making small plates is exhausting after 8 or so hours. In the field I will no doubt have 12-16 hour days, when you get into your late 60s early 70s, that might be a bit tough :). This project will be extremely demanding on a physical level, hope I am up to it.
During the wet plate work today I had some technical issues. My mind spinning in circles at times. The first 3 plates on QQC collodion were fine then I started getting a fog like (not veiling) on the plates. I tried many things, exposure, developer, silver, fix, but problem persisted, which was rather frustrating.. When I went to slower collodion (Poe Boy) the problem seemed better. I then decided it might be a fogging issue from the safe lights in the trailer. I added more battery safe lights and changed out my existing red door filter to for Rubylith this week. So this was the first time I was working under these new lighting conditions
When I turned off the safe lights, the problem seemed to go away. Patience is always required in the process, something Quinn J mentions numerous times in his books.
I find exposure the most difficult part of wet plate so far. Overexposure is throwing me for a bit of a loop at times. Eventually getting into making negatives will be fun!!
Today's photo, my fathers funeral crucifix and rosary again.
