Wet Collodion Photography

With a big change from the bright blue sky of yesterday to grey misty drizzle, we decided to go to Compton Verney this morning ... and I was very glad we did!

A photographer from Nuneaton (Jo Gane) was working on three wet plate collodion portraits of people involved in an oral history project. 
I hadn't realised quite how time critical the process was, but we arrived at just the right time for Jo to explain it as she went along. 

The glass plate is first edged with egg white, to form a shallow dam then coated in the colloid which goes on as a runny liquid but quickly  becomes tacky so it then goes into a bath of silver nitrate for around 3 minutes, to become light sensitive. 
Then the photographer has ~10/15 minutes to make the exposure. 
The negative is then developed as 'normal'. 


My blip shows Jo pulling the wooden cover out from the plate box,  then removing the lens cover (shutter) and the final image. 
I don't have a photo of her putting the colloid onto the plate as she did that outside and I was holding her umbrella :-)   
The colloidion involved ether so it smells too strongly to be done inside.

Her camera is 130+ years old and was restored by a cabinet maker in Kidderminster, he also remade the plate box(es) using wood from an old bed frame.   
She said the plate would be about ISO 5 as we understand it, and the lens is f2.  Exposure 15-20 seconds and she asks the sitter to look at one of the screw heads on the camera to help them keep still.
The emulsion is much more blue sensitive than red, so UV light makes a big difference and the sitters often look older than they are because of the was skin blemishes are recorded.

Variable temperatures affect to colloid even to the extent of heat from her fingers changing how it adheres to the plate. 
We have it a lot easier with our modern kit!

Although she is just there today, there is an exhibition of one of her previous projects in the main building.

There's a better explanation here on wikipedia.

More up to date photography .... after a prompt from NickyR I renewed my Adobe subscription for a year in the Amazon Black Friday thing. 
£69 instead of £10 a month - worth a look if you are an Adobe victim fan.