Made And Filtered Silver This Weekend

Today's filtering of Silver Nitrate with a fresh mixed bottle of Quinn Quick Clear Collodion alongside. Will eventually need at least 4 of these 5 litre silver nitrate bottles,  when making 35x35 inch plates, EXPENSIVE!

Note* 2 make-up style pads are inserted into each funnel. You filter until there is no black material from the sunned silver nitrate left on in the pads. I usually do about 2 cycles of 3 funnels, sometimes more.

Filtering 3 funnels at a time, takes around 2 hours for the liquid to drip through.

Gerry Collodion Ripening Fast

I mixed up some fresh Gerry Collodion yesterday.

from Facebook....

The Gerry Collodion (or whatever it’s original name is) changed color and passed the QQC collodion in darkness, in only 1 day. GC 24 hours old, QQC about 3 days old. The iodide salts are really working! No added ether, wonder if that makes a difference. Last year GC took a long time to turn red. Will follow its progress this year.

About 23 hours or so later, has turned from yellow to orange.

TEARS OF A BUTTERY FLY Magazine

 A sort of shitty quality magazine that I made up for the 2017 exhibition of 'My Fathers Last Days".

TEARS OF A BUTTERFLY Magazine at Vimeo.com 

Quote: William Shakespeare

 “One beautiful heart is better than a thousand beautiful faces.”

35x35 Inch Silver Nitrate On Its Way!

The large 35x35 inch Silver Nitrate tank/box is built and on its way to Canada from the Czech Republic. The box is for making 27x35 and 35x35 wet plate collodion ambrotypes. The tank will be used as part of the AMBOTOS KANATA photography project.

Am worried how hard it will be to get the large sheet of 35x35 inch glass out of the tank using the dipper. I might have to adapt it somehow.

My 35x35 inch Silver Nitrate tank/box.

The Covid News From Thailand Is Bad

 Hearing all kinds of terrible news out of Thailand. Some of the latest.

- Country is in a lockdown. Initially there was a voluntary curfew from 9pm to 4am. As delta versions of the virus rose each day (Delta is taking over) a mandatory curfew was installed country wide. If you are out between 9pm and 4am and it is not an emergency or you do not have the proper paperwork (for work etc.) you are then arrested.

- All stores are closed at night, food buying can only happen during the day. Stores like 7/11 which are usually open 24/7 close at 8pm. Bangkok (10 million plus people) is like a ghost town at night, empty roads and sidewalks.

- A few nights ago more than 8 bodies of homeless people dead from Covid were found on Bangkok streets. The bodies were left in the hot sun for many hours before they could be picked up and the area cleaned (chemical sprays). Body collection has been slowed by the amount of people dying.

- The Klong Toey slum area (where I photographed THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY), has experienced much infection and death.

- A nurse/mother whose 10 year old son got the virus committed suicide by jumping off the hospital roof where she worked. I am not sure what happened to her son.

- A couple who could not get access to hospital care after 4 days of trying (the hospitals are all full country wide, no beds available) committed suicide together by hanging.

- Many Thais cannot even buy vaccines if they have the money. There was an announcement of limited Chinese vaccines coming into the country in the next few weeks. These vaccines are the cheapest on the market and have serious side effects (temporary paralysis) and limited effectiveness (supposedly it does not work well against the Delta variant).

THE PEOPLE OF THAILAND ARE DESPERATE FOR VACCINES BUT CANNOT GET THEM.

Meanwhile in the USA/Canada and other Western places, people refuse vaccines. The world is a very unfair place.

Everyone, PLEASE GET YOUR VACCINES if you can. You do not realize how lucky and fortunate you are.

Kanata Things

So I just confirmed with Filip, the HF2024 camera (20x24 inch) is on its way to Canada. I paid the FedEx duty tonight. The camera will take a while to travel to from the Czech Republic but it is on its way along with some small parts for the HF3535 that was missed last time. When the camera arrives I will have various camera ultra large format options, a 16x20, a 20x24 and a 35x35 inch. Lots of formats there, just got to make the pics now. The photography is always the hardest and the fun-nest part of things.

HF2024

Next week the plan is to take the Freddy (trailer) and Fanny (RV) out on the road for almost the entire week. I think I will leave on Tuesday and return on Sunday, Calgary, Banff, Lake Louise and the mountain park areas all on the agenda. It should be loads of fun and another learning experience driving the rig-trailer and trying to make ambrotypes.

Been working on my chemistry this week. Mixed up some more silver nitrate, it is sunning now, will filter it on my return from the night shift tomorrow morning. Later in the week am mixing up some new "Gerry Collodion" (the stuff I have had the most success with in the past). Am also planning on following Luther Gs advice and go to regular acid developer and cut out much (all?) of the trailer rubylith window stuff.

This should be a gas!! Making photos is always fun, as is traveling in the Canada's mountain parks. Hope to get some images this time. Step by step we are slowly moving closer to fulfilling the goals of the project.

Note* If I get the chance I also hope to set up the solar panel system for the trailer inverter power supply. I also still need to set up my back up camera gear.

Note** Hope this is my last camera for the project, but then I have hoped that before and keep buying.

Backing The Trailer

Getting better at the backing the trailer thing. Put it into a big open space on the drive way first try. Got to continue to improve at moving this thing around. Will be transporting the trailer far and wide to make pics, need to be fluid and safe in the moving.

So far am disappointed with my 2021 wet plate efforts. I will renew the work in this new home location. Taking Fanny (RV) and Freddy (trailer) out to the mountains to make pictures next week, need to get my ducks aligned. So much left to learn, making lots of mistakes but that is part of the journey, it always is.

Big drive ways are a good thing. I will probably keep the trailer up front from now on. Put the motorhome in the back yard space this winter, later in the garage.

Trailer Security

Trailer security, a bit of over kill. From the same parking spot last year my truck was stolen. I realize no trailer is safe from theft but I wanted to slow the thieves down. A Facebook friend also suggested I hide some Apple Air Tags in the trailer, seems like a good plan!

Defensive cruise missiles are next on the security agenda

20x24 Duty Payment

Made a duty payment to Fed Ex for my 20x24 camera from Filip in the Czech Republic. Quite excited. Hope to shoot this camera this year sometime.

20x24 Info Link

HF2024

Quote: James Baldwin

"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive. Only if we face these open wounds in ourselves can we understand them in other people. An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are. He has to tell, because nobody else can tell, what it is like to be alive."

—James Baldwin, Telling Talk from a Negro Writer, LIFE magazine, May 24, 1963

Dreamed Of Dad

I just woke up after a dream about my father. He looked sickly thin but was walking and seemed OK. I waked into a room where he was standing and told him, “I have so much to tell you before you get sick again.” Then I woke up. The dream was upsetting. My eyes teared up on awaking. It has been 6 years and 5 months now but I still miss my dad terribly.

Was thinking if I dedicated something to him, a form of a gift, maybe that might help.  A book on AMBROTOS KANATA?

Back From The Park

Back from the park. Exciting and extremely difficult day and 1/2. The motorhome/trailer handled well. I am even SLOWLY getting better at backing up. I feel quite comfortable driving her now, even in convoy mode.

Ambrotype making went so so, had some issues the first and second day. I think it was fogging from the brighter daylight coming through the rubylith. This morning got up at 3am, got everything going in the early morning light and collodion things worked very well, then as the sun came out there were the same problems. Might try blocking out half the big rubylith window. I was warned about the fogging possibility from some Facebook friends. 

 

Got the agitation pump washer working as well, no issues there. I will need to place each plate in its own protective container when washing. Otherwise there are collodion damaging moments. Will also need to carry lots of water if I plan on doing this in the field.

 

A good all round training experience. The work was difficult and hard to do. When I saw a good image thou, it was all worth it. With wet plate you need to fight through the bad times to get those magical image making moments. Those magic times make it all worth it.

 

I think with the project I will need to pace myself especially as I age. Maybe drive on certain days and make images on others, not both on the same day. Once I get my working systems down things should flow smoother and easier. Right now everything I do is for the first time, that such a difficult way to do things. Your always over thinking and not doing things the efficient way. Later there will be flow to it all, right now, not a hell of a lot of flow.

 

Need to go to sleep! Pretty exhausted right now.

 

Note* The shooting water from the agitation pump helps when washing off the collodion on plates your recycling.

 

Will keep a daily journal for the project, Hope to write it each morning. Could be used in a possible book on the project. Getting a tad ahead of myself there :).

Poor attempts but a start. I had fogging issues with the trailer (I think). Will try to rectify that before going out again.

Quote: Nelson Mandela

New Entertainment Area In FANNY

Just set up the entertainment centre in FANNY the RV. A little Maltese Falcon Blu-Ray action. Got this on the cheap. TV $40 CAD, Blu-Ray player $13 CAD. It will be nice to have a movie night out on the road after a day of shooting.

You gotta LOVE Peter Lorre!

Ordered My 35x35 Silver Nitrate Box Today

Ordered my 35x35 inch silver bath box today!!! Zow-wii!! Cost was $863 USD including shipping from the Czech Republic. Expensive yes, but also reasonable and the unit is well built, reinforced! Hope to use it for 15 years to photograph Canada during the AMBROTOS KANATA wet plate collodion project.

35x35 inch Silver Nitrate Tank

Definition Of Liberal

 This word is often misunderstood, thought I would share its true meaning.

No Trip To Thailand In 2021

Thailand is in trouble. Low vaccine rates, suicides from the virus and the economic destruction of lives, hospitals full. The government cannot provide enough vaccines, testing is also limited or has stopped as there not enough kits. The country will go into a lockdown again on Monday. People are being advised to wear 2 masks, not just one. It is a mess. My hopes extend to Thailand and their beautiful people. I hope things will become better there soon, hope other nations will join in to help them.

The September Thai trip looks dead. Plan to use my 2021 vacation time to work on the KANATA wet plate project. Will try to return to Thai in March of 2022.

The beautiful smiles of Burmese children at the dump in Mae Sot, Thailand

Removing Fixer From The Plate In The Field

It is very important to wash the hypo (Sodium Thiosulfate) fix from your plate after use. It is the main reason I decided to do the whole agitation pump thing in the trailer. This pump will allow for better washing of plates if I continue to use hypo as my main fixing agent (might turn to KCN). I found that the pump also runs off my little Costco emergency battery unit. A nice bonus there!

This is from Quinn Jacobson's book "Chemical Pictures", in his section on Sodium Thiosulfate, page 44.

"Remember, if you use this fixing agent, you will be required to wash the plate in running water for at least 30 minutes to fully remove the silver/hypo from the plate.  If the plate is not washed well, it will turn black over time because of the silver/hypo still left on the plate."

My plan is to use the pump to create good agitation and do multiple (now many not sure?) water changes in the field to wash the plate properly before drying.

My little Costco Unit

Agitation Pump

Latest Wet Plate Preperation Work

Wet plate is all about preparation. I did some work at work and at home in the trailer the last few days.

At work:

- Cleaned and deburred 4x5 plates clear glass plates

- Cleaned and deburred 4x5 plates clear glass and black glass plates.

- Cleaned and deburred 4x5 and 8x10 clear glass plates.

At home:

- Attached  the sewer out from the sinks to the portable sewer tank with an adaptor. There seems to be a blockage in the line, need to figure that out, draining is slow.

- Tested the agitation pump, it works on the 200w Costo battery unit. Not sure for how long.

- Redid the specific gravity of my silver, measuring hydrometer to check that it was a about 1.07. 

- Placed the large free silver storage cooler I got and made from work in the trailer.

- Mixed up another bottle of plate cleaner. 1/3 calcium carbonate, 1/3 Distilled water, 1/3 Alcohol.

I now have 2 larger bottles of about 2500-3000ml each. If one bath has problems I can try the second. I need to buy more EXPENSIVE silver nitrate for future use. I have a small amount in a bottle (misplaced) that I can use for toping up. But to do up larger amounts of Silver that I will need for the 16x20 camera this year I need to get more.

There are 2 problems with the silver bath storage unit. One is that 2 of my bottles are stuck, the foam kept expanding and trapped them. The second is I am getting a slight droplet leak when I tighten the caps on the older bigger bottles that I bought cheaper (should have realized). I need to figure out how to seal those properly so no air gets in and no Silver liquid gets out.

Update* Might try this to get a better seal on the caps, will give it a go after work tomorrow. I will also work on the sewer plugged issue. Got to get the trailer and the rest 100% functioning, so it will be a great tool in the field!

I love how you can find help for almost any problem on YouTube!

How To Stop A Leaking Cap By Improvisation!

Silver Nitrate Cooler

Beginning Subjects, The First Week With The Trailer, AMBROTOS KANATA

This is a bit of a long shot, but heck you got to try! I have never hooked up or pulled a trailer behind the new/used RV but will try that this week for the first time. I have also not made in collodion images this year yet, so have to mix up new chemistry for the work. Assuming I can tow the trailer for the first time without incident, and assuming all the collodion end of things work. I plan to shoot the following next week! Even if I get half this done, it will be a start. Will just be doing 4x5s and 8x10s ambrotypes.

Days/Subjects to photograph them:

Tuesday - My recently found old tree near the house.

Wednesday -  Burned remains of Catholic Church in Morinville Alberta. The church was burned down recently as a protest against the genocide that occurred at the residential schools (recently discovered mass graves at multiple locations).

                    - Old church in Smokey Lake Alberta.

Thursday - Elk Island National Park various subjects (over night camping).

Friday - Elk Island continued plus the Duck at Andrew, the Egg at Vegreville.

Saturday or Sunday - Charles Camsell Hospital.

A simple start to AMBROTOS KANATA. Hope I can get at least some of this done. Getting too old too fast, got to make me some ambrotypes!

Hmm...want to do some portraits as well! Where can I fit those in?

Quote: Frederick Scott Archer (The Inventor Of Wet Plate Photography)

I have been thinking of exposure a lot lately, and how you need to guard against overexposure, in both positives and negatives.

"I may remark, however, that for a positive on glass, less exposure is necessary than for a negative drawing; the later will generally require about one-third longer time."

Quote: Vincent Van Gogh

 From a letter to his brother Theo.

"When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion, then I go out and paint the stars."

Views From Inside My Wet Plate Darkroom Trailer

Some photos inside the trailer. Things are coming together.

The 3000w inverter arrives tonight. Want to set it up before using the trailer next week for the first time in the field. 

Fresh mixes of QQC, Gerry and Poe Boy Collodions. QQC and Gerry have 100ml doses of las years red coloured collodion added in. Will test this stuff next week when I take the trailer on the road for the first time.

Some so so cut 4x5 plates in a nice Lund glass plate storage box.

Various old darkroom tanks I had in my garage, might find a use for them now.

Washed glassware in one of dads old trays. The sink area works great for clean up.

Agitation pump with tied off tubing. It gets in the way a bit, but worth it in the end I think. The plates should be be better washed as a result of this device.

Mixed chemicals, fix and developer.

A glass funnel I found in dads cooking kitchen. It should prove useful.

Trying to figure how to back the camera gear.

Trying to use a CD rack as a ambrotype drying holder. My wet plate binder, with formulas and help from from friends is shown as well.

My wonky 8x10 plate holder (a found cooler). More work required.

Quote: Plato

 

Quote: William Shakespeare

 

Quote: David Suzuki

 

Did Some Camping Last Week

Another week of practice camping last week. I plan on taking the RV and Darkroom Trailer (Freddy) out for the first time next week. Practice time is over, time to make me some AMBROTYPES!!! Very excited by the possibilities. On return from camping I spent the last few days off my week off working on the trailer, trying to get it up to snuff, for road travel.

Some pics from last week. I did a lot of reading, which was so nice. The cats enjoyed themselves as well, they especially liked the A/C in the motorhome.

Fanny on the Road