AMBROTOS KANATA Begins Today

 9/11 2020, AMBROTOS KANATA.  begins today. Will it take 10 years? 15 years? 20 years? Photographing Canada on glass or pissing into the wind, we shall see what happens, either way it will be interesting. Wish me luck, I am certainly going to need it.

Cut Glass For The First Time

 from Facebook...

Cut glass for the first time today, it went well. My biggest problem was cutting glass a bit too big, glass that would not fit in the holder. I worked it out in the end thou. I had to re cut small sections of glass off some of the edges, so that lead to some rough edges and a few pieces of glass that are smaller. I got 32-4x5ish plates to work with from 2-16x20 sheets of 3mm glass. I will also try doing a 16x20 ambrotype before the weather changes in October, that should be fun. Sort of a year end event.

 

 

Anybody ever scratch their names or photo titles into the collodion emulsions? What tool works best for that? Want to give that a try. I will have to write backwards on the clear glass so it it is oriented properly after the asphaltum is applied.

 

Almost Ready To Start AMBROTOS KANATA

 from Facebook...

Packed my car full of gear. Gosh there is a lot of stuff you need to take when your doing wet plate in the field. I still need to load the ice fishing tent and all my camera gear and the trunk is filled along with a good portion of the interior of the car. Am really looking to get started on the KANATA project. Even with this 2 year early start it seems this idea had been hovering in my head for a decade. Got to start to try making some damn pictures. Working in wet plate, making ambrotypes and negs will be difficult but loads of fun, especially when I get the trailer going.

 

 

I still need to pick up my glass and cut it tomorrow. Turns out it is way cheaper to get 16x20 sheets of clear glass then cut them down to 4x5 compared to getting the shop to cut them individually. The shop quoted me $5.95 for each 4x5 glass plate (3mm thick) and $13.33 each 16x20 glass plate (3mm thick). I ordered 10-16x20s and can get 16 4x5 out of a sheet of glass if I cut it correctly. I will cut some down some glass to 4x5 and 8x10 and use others in my 16x20 Chamonix camera. I want to get out and make pictures tomorrow but it might not be till Friday.

 

 

There does not seem to be enough time in the day to get everything done. I worked about 6 hours answering my second set of questions from Analog Forever Photography Magazine, think there are like 40 questions total, something like that. When I do these things I like to take my time and give the best answers I can, after that I never read them again, my copies or the magazines/websites. It makes me squirm to read myself pontificating, I try to avoid that. Still need to polish the answers up (another 2 hours?) and also will need to make high res scans for the mags, assuming I can find the negatives.

Figuring out which cameras to take with me as well. Am thinking I do not want to expose my Linhof 4x5 to silver, so might use a Toyo or a Wista camera. Will play with them and pack them tonight.

 

 

Ordered a Rock-N-Roller R18 cart to help haul the gear in the field but am still on waiting on its arrival.

 

 

Repost Of Donated Toys

 from a Facebook memory....

 

This is the good part of the dump. The toys were donated by a person I work with. My coworker donated toys from her daughter, which I then took to the dump in Mae Sot Thailand and handed out to the families. The boots were also donated, tougher saftey boots.

You get down in the dump while making pictures. The heat, the flies the rats and cockroaches are very tough for this pampered Canada boy to take. So you end up getting worn down and wonder why your there, then you hand out free donated toys to the children, you see their smiles, their joy and all your negativity leaves and your just filled with a sense of fulfillment and happiness.

Donated toys

With the children, think this is around 2013

Donated doll, her young head is shaved because of the Lice in the dump

Win family children, I have photographed them as they have grown

Donated safety boots from the company I work at in Canada

View of dump houses

Film Only Images, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP

This is a re post of FILM ONLY image from THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP.

 

I need to check to see if the pohto below is digital or film, think it is film but will find the neg to confirm.