I know its a silly question, but having seen the process evolve since 1995, it appears to me that either the process has gotten easier or something. Back then, the eight by ten was considered a BIG plate, and not too many people were doing them. But I cannot even begin to add up the number of baths in this size Ive made, but Id guess its somewhere between 500 and 700.

So.....where the heck are all these images going? Are people actually selling them? or, are they just made and stored....another product of a hobby gone wild?

I dunno.....I thought I picked something obscure to specialize in, but now it seems likes its mainstream. Or, am I just getting a weird slant on things because of the business and all the emails?

I think a lot of people with disposable income take a workshop and buy all the equipment they need, then it sits on a shelf unused, which is sad. But, I also think that maybe a little of the fear in shooting big has gone away. Now "BIG" is 20x24. I still like half plate and full plate because I don't have to have a big van to transport the gear, and I can scan those plates on a good scanner big enough to make great 70x90 prints if I wanted...

Well, it has gotten easy. This is because the guys holding workshops (well most of them) are very well-accomplished and are passing on reliable and consistent formulas. You guys who were doing this before John started his manuals had only the Silver Sunbeam and Eastabrook's to go by. And there was a lot of trial and error to go through. Now, there is no trial and error phase needed.

www.guillorycameras.com

Yes, big has gotten out of control. I just had a person from Belgium email me who is going to start doing 8 foot square plates. She has never done wet plate before but seen a picture of a tintype and wants to do them now.


Yeah Ty..Im sure you know the feeling too....the worst thing a maker can hear is that a camera he built some years ago is being sold "never used". WHATS THE POINT?? Like buying a car, and leaving it in the garage for years...or marrying a pretty lady and never etc etc etc.

I take non use of equipment I make almost as a personal insult. My Dad was the same way with things he made.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/2010 05:02PM by Ray Morgenweck.

I'd say it's gotten easy...I wish I had the resources that everyone has today. What would I have given for access to the internet in 1988. Thankfully, What I did have is friends like John Coffer, Bill Dunniway and Mark Osterman. We all wanted to make the best plates we can, and I think we all did pretty good for the resources we had at the time.

TY, your absolutly right about Silver Sunbeam and Eastabrook's Ferrotype and How to Make It. They were the text books. I could probably still recite passages from the section on "imperfections and how to correct them."

I'm amazed at what level of craft and skill wetplate has developed into since my days with John Coffer back in 1988. We are now only limited by our imagination.

My circle of friends is getting bigger every day. It's a good circle indeed.

Claude Levet, Hammond LA

Claude, you gave me a price list to the Photographers Formulary back in 1987 (or thereabouts) when you 'struck my image' at Batsto NJ. I had been reading and rereading my homemade copier copy of Archers book. Your helping hand and encouragement to learn the craft will always be remembered. THAT got me started on the whole thing.

THanks! Ray

and PS that image is still as perfect as the day it was made. You had a grasp of the process back then that will stand even with the best of anyones work done today. ...and you didnt need to show T&A either to make a memorable plate :-)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/2010 10:43PM by Ray Morgenweck.

All I can say is thank God Claude didn't show us your T&A Ray. That would have surely been a memorable plate that would have probably scarred us all for life. :-)

Now Robert, Scarred for life for viewing his T&A may be a little hard on our good friend Ray, but I can imagine being scarred for a couple of weeks at least....claude

Ray, will you hate me if I tell you that I've got a 10x12 camera of yours that I'm about to sell "never used"? I didn't order it directly from you, but picked it up off of the other forum about 4 years ago when someone else was selling (never used), thinking I'd want to shoot big, 10x12 plates. Then life kicked in and I couldn't afford to build a bigger darkbox.

10x12 is way bigger than I need, so it needs to be in the hands of someone who will use it, and I'll make sure of that. No need for a perfectly good camera to go to waste!

Ray... I don.t think you have to worry about your cameras being used .
there are more people that want to make wet-plate then there are cameras.
many will come in to wet-plate and see they want to make bigger plates and many will see that they really find a sweet spot, with a smaller camera.and sometimes you just have to sell some stuff to get the kit you want.
I think when kodak ilford and fuji stop making film the wet-plate cameras will live on ,,as long as Artcraft sells us the stuff we need, your cameras in ten years will be more useful then anything polaroid ever made.

How about all those ugly duckling c,c,harrison lenses, sitting on shelves and in the back of attics waiting over a hundred years for someone to ask them to dance.
now their dance cards have a waiting list.....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2010 09:38AM by Richard Mellor.

Bigger is the trend in many art forms now. It's a trend among digital photographers too. Bigger printers are getting more user-friendly and cheaper. Maybe some wet plate shooters feel constrained by 8x10 or smaller, but I don't. The less-is-more approach will return when the cycle makes its way around.

The next new trend coming out of the New York galleries will be "nano-wet plate" Wet plate collodion images on the head of a pin. :-)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2010 01:28PM by robert.

styles go in cycles. am i mistaken but wernt wp photographers in the 1800s not competing with size. imperial plates and the such. if you have the money to spend on the chemicles why not make 8x8 plates. i think there are some main stream artists who see collodion photography as a new media that not many are using. i look at it this way. there are many reasons to get into wp.

the process is so unique that every photo is different.

you are sick of digital photography.

you are in love with history and are intrigued with old pics and want to reproduce your own. this is my reason.

is it easy? hell no.

ray, ty keep up the good work. hope someday to be able to get one of your fine wp cameras.

ps ray i am now about an hour from you in philly. if i ever get the time (a day off of work) i would like to come down and meet you.

I wouldn't say that WP is easy. Digital is "easy". My WP camera is getting used - Thanks Ty! I do have plates sitting on shelves! Anyone want to buy one?

Do you think WP photographers in the 1800's thought it was easy after it became mainstream?

The 1860 US census had thirty thousand individuals list their profession as Photographer. That comes at a time when the countries population was thirty million........so, One in One thousand people knew the wet plate process (or worked for a photographer).

Wet Plate back then was easy. You ordered your stuff from E and HT Anthony, bought ready made cases, chemicals.....and had a wealth of texts to teach you the ins and outs.

Thanks for the facts Ray!

Coming full circle!

Ray, where did you find that information? I while back I had been trying to find information on how many photographers there were during the war. The closest thing I found was at the Civil War Museum in Kenosha, WI that said (as long as I remember right) 1500 photographers in the field. I thought that may be a low number, but then again maybe not.


Ray Morgenweck Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The 1860 US census had thirty thousand individuals
> list their profession as Photographer. That
> comes at a time when the countries population was
> thirty million........so, One in One thousand
> people knew the wet plate process (or worked for a
> photographer).

Andrew La Roche
Waukesha, WI
www.civilwarphotographer.net

I do not remember or mentally footnote much of the semi useless trivia that clogs my brain.

If I run across that source, Ill be happy to "quantify? it (where do I remember that word from?? }

"Do you think WP photographers in the 1800's thought it was easy after it became mainstream?"

I know that Charles Dodgson (i.e. Lewis Carroll) gave up photography after dry plates became available as he felt it was just too easy at that point.

Wetplate has gotten a bit popular these past few years, which is a good thing in a way... but also makes me think that maybe we should take up Daguerreotypy just to keep out the riff-raff

...and George Eastman dedicated himself to perfecting DRY plates after his bottle of silver nitrate spilled and ruined several of his crisp white shirts

robert Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The next new trend coming out of the New York
> galleries will be "nano-wet plate" Wet plate
> collodion images on the head of a pin. :-)


Hmmm, I have an old busted Minox...

Im afraid that tiny wet plate images are as old as the hills.

The Stanhope, which is a minute image usually done on the reverse of a tiny lens for inclusion in a viewer, was a wet plate era invention. Developer here is pyrogallic acid, which produces a finer image than ferrous sulfate.

Talking about nano-collodion images, I recently had the chance to view one of John Benjamin Dancer's microphotographs recently. It was a collodion image on a glass microscope slide and was the size of a speck of dust. You need a good microscope to view it. He used an optical path that incorporated a microscope to create the image. I wonder if there is anyone out there now who makes collodion images that small. Most of his scenes are of static images as I imagine he needed very long exposure times.
Fionnbharr

Just breezing through this post caught my eye.

I started three years ago.. at the edge of the tidal wave.

Ray .. i have shot many thousands of images out of your wonderful Anthony Camera
And i have made a fair living from this new chapter in collodion.

i came from a long career with the romantic Diana camera. Wet plate was a perfect next step.

I think there will be a big bell curve in general. Its a trend. Trends change over night. It will run its course with a lot of people, galleries, art directors art buyers stock sales collecting public, Like cross processing or polaroid transfere , infared.. it will get old to a lot people very quickly... galleries and art directors are excited when its unsual and new..first time seeing it.. not so much when everyone is doing it.

We will see if this process lasts for me. Maybe maybe not .. i sure do love it deeply now.. its magic.

The greatest lesson is it has taught me to slow down and look carefully making the picture and processing it in your hand one at a time.
That is a lesson and way of working that i can carry back into any analog picture making.

Mark
www.gallerysink.com/marksink

Yes, I thought that camera looked familiar!

Wet Plate continues to gather new practitioners, at least two or three a week come my way. Im glad Ive been able to help this process gain a foothold in the new century. Everything old is new again, and this is proven over and over.

Back when I started...there was no one, nothing. Maybe eight people were doing the process, and no one was making any kind of supplies on a commercial basis. the internet, as we know it...had not even evolved to be of any help.

Thankfully, Mark Osterman was there to spread the knowledge, and his influence is still felt. When my father started making the wet plate cameras in 1998, and started up this little camera company...he said "Now dont tell too many people I dont want to make this seem like work". No doubt he would be amused to learn I work 12 hours or so a day, seven days a week...and still have backlogs.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/2010 10:18PM by Ray Morgenweck.