31 December
On
In Family Portraits, Tintype, Uncategorized
With

This process has me hooked! Each image is a lot of work, and I never really know how it will turn out, but that’s also what makes the process so much fun. If I wanted reliable and perfect, I can just shoot digital 😉 With this process, you learn to accept, and love, the imperfections. Each image is handmade, and unique.

We shot 9 images in a little over two hours. Eight are shared here, we had one “blinker” and I won’t share that one.

From a quote I just read recently in Sally Mann’s “a thousand crossings”: “When I was shooting with collodion, I wasn’t just snapping picture, I was fashioning, with fetishistic ceremony, and object whose ragged black edges gave it the appearance of having been torn from time itself.” WHOA!

5×7 Tintype, our first image. I was worried if I had enough strobe power to cover 5 people. Quite happy to see it worked out.

5×7 Ambrotype. An ambrotype is the exact same process as a tintype, but is shot on glass. Mine are shot on glass that was given to me by a friend. This glass used to be a greenhouse, so I’m doing some recycling 🙂
Just the kids on 5×7 tintype.
4×5 tintype
4×5 tintype. Switched to a black background, and I think I prefer it to white. Feels a little 3D.
4×5 tintype. That’s bad developer pour on the right side of the image. I’d be slightly happier if it wasn’t there, but with this process, you embrace the imperfections. If you don’t like the imperfections, this process isn’t for you.
4×5 tintype
4×5 tintype (another bad developer pour on the top right)

If you’ve made it this far, and are interested in a portrait session with the wet plate process, send me a message. You’ll need to allow at least an hour for the session, but you’ll get to see the whole process from start to finish….and, it’s pretty cool! And, I’m just shooting these indoors right now with A LOT of strobe power, you can actually feel a little heat from the blast of flash. So, be aware. Not sure how small children would react to that. It won’t hurt you, but is a bit surprising the first few times.

Technical details….if you’re interested: Collodion is from Bostich and Sullivan, the “Old Workhorse” formula, and is about 3 months old. It’s a bit slow but the contrast is really nice. Cameras used: the 5×7’s were shot on a Burke and James 5×7 camera with an 18cm Heliar f/4.5 lens. The 4×5 plates were shot on a Crown Graphic with the stock Graflex Optar f/4.7 lens. Strobes are two Paul C Buff X3200’s, one in a silver beauty dish, the other in Buff’s 11″ long throw reflector, with couple of Buff Einstein’s as separation/kicker lights.

16 June
On
In Tintype
With

On June 2nd and 3rd I took a tintype workshop at the Visual Arts Center in Richmond.  This was my first time trying the wet plate process.  I’ve shot just about everything else, so I guess it was time :-).  It was taught by Michael Bartolotta.  He teaches several tintype workshops each year.  So, if you’re interested in the process, I’d highly recommend his workshop.  He gave a brief history, gave a demo of the process, and we were off shooting.  I have a 4×5 view camera that I’d bought back in the 80’s, so I brought that along.  But he has several cameras for class members to use, so you need not bring anything other than yourself.

Here are a few of the images I made in the two day workshop.  (the color of the scans varies somewhat, and that’s due to my scanning.  The plates have a slight sepia tint after they are dried and varnished)

First plate 🙂 Exposure was pretty good for my first guess. 8 seconds at f/8

Second plate. I used a gold reflector to push a bit of light into the dark part of the flower arrangement.

We were fighting rain all weekend, so we started inside. The rain stopped for a bit, so I found this view off the balcony on the back of the building.

Mannequins in the fabric studio downstairs. It had started raining again, so I’d gone looking for indoor subjects.

First plate on day 2. I was planning a self portrait and shot this first plate as a light test.

Self portrait, using an air bulb release.

I tried a reflection photo in the door…with somewhat sucky results.

There was a glass blowing class going on at Visarts the same weekend. I turned the camera around from the self portrait and shot a plate of the class in action.

Mike was shooting a portrait of one of the other class members, so I set the camera up for this somewhat “behind the scenes” photo.

Mike took a portrait of each of us.

Class photo. There were three of us in the class, but one member couldn’t attend on Sunday due to flooding in her area.