Category: Alternative Processes

An Afternoon With Race Gentry, Learning Daguerrotypes

8/18/2015

featuring Anton Orlov.
Hey guys! This post is a late one, but better late than never! Last week a friend of mine, Race Gentry, invited me to learn to learn how to do Daguerreotypes at another friends studio (Anton).

Equipment We Used.

Here are the steps we used to make Daguerreotypes:

Polish the silver with green powdered rouge using a sander.
Polish plates with red powdered rouge using a sander.
After using a sander we poured a little bit of 190 proof alcohol and polished the plates with a super fine powder called Linde “A” Polish (using a cotton ball with the alcohol already on the plate).
Plates were buffed on a buckskin buffing board with fine powdered red oxide.
Then buffed on a German velveteen buffing board with lamp black.
Then the plate is buffed a third time on clean velveteen buffing board.

Polishing the plate with red powdered rouge.

Before polishing, using Linde "A"

After polishing.

After making sure the plate was buffed and shining (very much most like a mirror) we moved over to Antons darkroom where Race set up his Iodine box and air fuming hood and mercury pot (we were working outside to not get the darkroom dirty)
7. Placed the plate silver side down over the exposed fumes (of Iodine) from the Iodine box till you can see a nice gold color tone on the plate.

After the plate was exposed, it was time to shoot! My first original photo was of Anton but the exposure was off and he moved during the 1 minute exposure! The exposure times are for sure something that I’m not used to, so I know if I were to explore more of the Daguerreotype world, it’s something I have to pay close attention to when learning. Every time you want to redo an image and use the same plate , you wipe off the image and you repeat steps 1-7.
And that’s what exactly Race and I did.

The image I ended up getting for that day was of one of the backside of Antons studio.

8. Development time. I decided to develop the image by using the Becquerel method. Which is using a Rubylith film slip. We left the plate in the slip for around 45 minutes to 1 hour.

9. We then fixed the plate using Sodium Thiosulfate.

10. Then gilded with Gold Chloride and sodium thiosulfate.

Finally Image!

After working with the wet plate process for years and doing this was a bit of a reality check to me. Daguerreotypes are hard. The prep time for these can take awhile and it makes me appreciate how with wet plate how everything can be quick when you know what your doing.
I hope to be doing more of these in the future!

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An Afternoon with Guy Rhodes

7/20/2015

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Hey guys! So for those who follow me on Facebook, you already know that I spent the better beginning of July in Chicago, IL. During my time there I was very fortunate to meet up with another amazing photographer who practiced Wet Plate Collodion. It was both of our first time meeting someone out of state that practice Wet plate, so It was pretty exciting.
We met at the bridge by the Lincoln Park Zoo around 7 at night. I have never shot so late in the day, so I was wondering how my exposure times would be ( theres always a first for everything! )

After helping Guy set up and introductions, he took me on a small tour of his set up and how to use it. It was my first time seeing and working with the Lund Portable Darkroom . I can very much say it is smaller than the dark room that was made for me. Space wise. But I can very much see how easy it was to set up at an on location shoot verses my darkroom where you have to wrestle with the PVC pipes (which is something I am going to fix soon). It was also my first time working with a more modern view camera as well. His camera is an Crown Graphic with an 135mm/4.7 lens, used for the size of 4x5.
Here are some BTS my folks were able to take while we worked.
(thanks mum and dad)

After getting a tour of how he uses his set up, he was so kind to have allowed me do a couple of plates. Thank you Guy for taking some awesome photos of me trying to do a plate and not mess it up! I can say it was a challenge to use the set up but I'm glad I was able to use it and nothing tipped over or have anything bad happened. The only difference was in the chemistry. I'm used to using KCN as my fixer, but he uses IIford Rapid Fix diluted 1+4 with distilled water. The one thing i noticed that it worked slower than KCN, but way better for your health and it didn't have a smell that normally KCN does.

The other challenged that I faced was how quick his collodion set, so my first plate has some black space of the metal showing through and my exposure was way off. After having it dry for awhile I was able to scan it and bring back some of the details of the image using Lightroom.

The last two plates that I did came out a whole lot better, pouring wise and exposure time wise. I was pleasantly surprised on how we were getting good results and it was about almost 8 o'clock at night. I was also excited toward with the Lund Traveling Tanks. I can imagine how easy it is to go place to place.

Here are the scans of the last two plates that I did.

After I got my good results I got to see Guy in action and he was able to do one ambrotype with the little light we had left.

This experience has definitely made me feel hopeful for the future of being able to travel and meet other Wet plate Collodion photographers and learn their stories of how they got started in the process and why they love it so much. A big thanks to Guy Rhodes for letting me have this opportunity and being patient with me.

To see more of Guy Rhodes work you can visit his website here

You can follow me here on Facebook : C.A.S. Photography
Also on Instagram : @cas_photo

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Tradesmen Pour House

7/3/2015

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Tradesmen

Hey guys! I'm here to share with you the tintypes that I did at the Tradesmen - creative proprietors & charitable pour house at the beginning of this month. I was contacted a few weeks ago to do tintypes of all the historical homes that Stepheni and her father, Stephen, and husband Michael have rehabilitated and now have a new life.
This home is a 1886 Victorian Stick style home, in East Village.

The Tradesmen house is a place where you and your small business can work and conduct meetings. They have 7 unique rooms in the house ranging in sizes of the space to get your work done! I wish that wet plate had the power to be able to do exposures inside of a home, but alas. It’s too dark! The inside has a lovely modern and vintage feel to the space.

The tintypes below where at the exposure time of 2 secs to 3 secs. Using a rapid rectilinear lens up until the last two plates where I switched to my voightlander lens. The first two plates are the size of 3 1/2 by 5 and the last plate is an 5x7 plate.

I will be working again with Tradesmen on the other properties that they have restored! So stay tuned :)