I am still in the midst of experimenting with making wet plate collodion images using 35mm slide film. I made some portraits of Kathleen on her wedding day with 35mm slide film in the hopes that I would be able to use an enlarger to expose them onto aluminum or glass plates. I used an Aristo cold head enlarger with the aperture all the way open. My exposures have been around 90 seconds to 3 minutes. So, here are a few results. I know, I know…those wet plate aficionados looking on….I realize I have some chemical and technique issues to work out.
Usually (not all the time) I feel the need to shoot a little film during each photo shoot and usually I have an idea in mind for what I want to do with it. Not too long ago a very generous donor gave the university where I work a Mamiya medium format camera. So, naturally…I wanted to test it out. I have a few medium format cameras of my own, but none this nice. So, I decided to shoot a few rolls during Allison and O’Neal’s engagement shoot, because she is a film lover also. I developed the black and white film myself and sent the color rolls to the Darkroom. Here are a few of the shots:
I haven’t really post a lot of pictures of my daughter on my blog. Most people think since I am a photographer that I must take sooo many pictures of Eliza. But, I really don’t. I think it is actually much harder to take pictures of your own kids, at least it is difficult to do the posey picture types. Most of the time when I have taken pictures of Eliza she just wants to run to me, which makes it very difficult to make anything happen. But, with the help of family members and distractions (like bugs!) we do manage. She was just over 22 months old when these pictures were taken. I can’t believe she is almost 2….what happened?
Meet Allison and O’Neal. No, seriously, you need to meet them. They truly are some of the coolest and most kind people I know. I was blessed to have Allison as a photography student at Francis Marion University. O’Neal is also an alumni of FMU. There are so many wonderful things I could write about them that I really wanted to put this off because anything I write simply won’t be able to describe how brilliant, kind, pleasant, and awesome these two are. The other reason I wanted to put this off is because O’Neal was an English major and I’m not the best writer, so perhaps he is editing this in his mind as he reads it. Anyway, so back to the happy couple. Seriously, they are one of a kind. Well, really their kindness is one of a kind. Allison has an infectious passion for photography as well as for people. Allison also has a love for food which will explain the images below. My favorite bakery in the whole wide world is Apple Annie’s in Wilmington, North Carolina. So, I went by Apple Annie’s before our shoot and got a few of their French rolled pastries. We stopped in the middle of the shoot and had “snack time.” I may need to institute “snack time” for every photo shoot from now on. I feel fortunate to be able to photograph for them again on the wedding day in September!
So, I am still pretty new to wet-plate collodion. But, I certainly am addicted. An Aristo cold light head was recently donated to the university. I had not seen one of these in a long time. One of my professors in grad school owned one, but I had never used one. It took me a while to figure out how to use it, but after some online research and picking some of my colleagues brains, I think I figured it out! I printed a few large format negatives first and I was immediately hooked on this enlarger. It prints so much more evenly than any other enlargers I have ever used! I decided to do some experimenting with using the enlarger as an exposure source for wet plates. I used old color positive slides I made in graduate school to make the exposures. I was pleasantly surprised. Most of these wet plates in this post (minus the shopping cart) are exposed from 35mm positive slides. I plan on making some in the future using medium format positive film 🙂