Laura Boston Thek Imagery » Collodion Wet Plate Process http://www.bostonthekimagery.com/blog An Itinerant Artist with multiple cameras and her Wheaten Terrier wandering through Europe. Fri, 09 Sep 2011 09:47:25 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= World Wet Plate Day….Get Pourin’ http://www.bostonthekimagery.com/blog/2010/05/02/world-wet-plate-day-get-pourin/ http://www.bostonthekimagery.com/blog/2010/05/02/world-wet-plate-day-get-pourin/#comments Sun, 02 May 2010 14:28:13 +0000 lthek http://www.bostonthekimagery.com/blog/?p=2105 Yesterday was World Wet Plate Day. I spent about 2 hours in my dark rainy garden trying to get a great plate to submit to the event. My husband laughs at me because my type A personality totally comes out in situations like this….anyway. I did manage to get 6 plates poured…that in Wet Plate does not mean I walked away with 6. The final count was 3 and one was a bit of an Ooops.

I liken the experience to a “Fish Tale”. I had the first two beautiful plates float away in the fix bath, BUT I was smart enough to get a digital snap of it…since there was no one there to witness the event.

After using black glass for the first 2 pours and having lost those images I switched to black aluminum. I had no issues with the glass inside the silver bath as they are heavy but apparently the metal floated on me and the silver coating stopped an inch from the top. I exposed it anyway and it turned out to be one of my favorites.

Two hours into it, I was finally getting into the rhythm of working inside the dark box….even with the low light I was still able to see properly to develop the plates, when the skies opened up and chased me speedily for cover. That is after I raced the camera indoors.

I just submitted my contribution to the event…too bad you can call a rain date.

Here is “The One That Got Away”

]]> http://www.bostonthekimagery.com/blog/2010/05/02/world-wet-plate-day-get-pourin/feed/ 1 This is Starting to Become a Habit http://www.bostonthekimagery.com/blog/2010/03/06/this-is-starting-to-become-a-habit/ http://www.bostonthekimagery.com/blog/2010/03/06/this-is-starting-to-become-a-habit/#comments Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:02:49 +0000 lthek http://www.bostonthekimagery.com/blog/?p=1928 Yesterday we had to do a bit of shopping and boy were we shocked when we got the bill.  The problem I believe was we were seeing everything in a new way.  The way of the Wet Plate Process.  It was like we were speaking a secret language, I even noticed a man trying to figure out what the heck we were talking about.  I would hold something up and look at my husband with a quizzical look and just say…” Collodion?“  He would either nod, shrug or give me a flat out look of ARE YOU CRAZY WOMAN.  I have to admit that was usually the look that would get me to put the item into my cart.

So today, we are back in the studio shooting and justifying our indulgent purchases by making them into Art…or at least attempting to.  Seems you do a lot more cleaning of glass than actually capturing images on it but all good things take time.  BUT, my ratio of cleaning to keeping is definitely getting better.

Here is the result of my visit to the vegetable isle yesterday.  I have to admit, this darkroom stuff is really starting to become a habit!  I think Fruit will follow Fungus today…

]]> http://www.bostonthekimagery.com/blog/2010/03/06/this-is-starting-to-become-a-habit/feed/ 1 Collodion Wet Plate Processing…Photography and Alchemy http://www.bostonthekimagery.com/blog/2009/12/15/collodion-wet-plate-processing-photography-and-alchemy/ http://www.bostonthekimagery.com/blog/2009/12/15/collodion-wet-plate-processing-photography-and-alchemy/#comments Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:40:25 +0000 lthek http://www.bostonthekimagery.com/blog/?p=1738 collodion-class-16sigsmWhen we started upon this journey into film photography it was my husband who was the real catalyst for this venture.  He did endless hours of research and was fearless about putting this knowledge into practice.  He decided that what interested him the most was an old process called Collodion Wet Plate, which produces an image on glass or metal.

He started searching out where he could learn this type of photography and amazingly he found a Master of this craft living no less then 6 miles from our house here in Germany and to make it more interesting, he too was a temporarily transplanted American.

For the past 3 days my husband was given the opportunity to study one on one with this amazingly talented man who has been attributed with bringing back to Europe the lost art of Collodion Photography, Quinn Jacobson of Studio Q Photography.   His work is inspirational in so many ways.

I popped in for a few hours to do a sitting for my husband and also to document some of his progression.   Make sure to take a look at a few of these informative and inspiring links and view the slideshow I created of the many steps and alchemy of this ancient process.  In the next few blogs i hope to get my hubby to take you on a tour of each step using the photos so keep a look out for those blogs.

Quinn Jacobson Master of the Collodion Process
Collodion Wet Plate Process

Great light to you during this busy holiday season!

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