I shot a cover for a major magazine a couple of weeks ago. Chris Morgan assisted me and poured all the plates since I only had so much time to take them. I was afraid the Hollywood celebrity would not want to just sit there while I headed for the darkroom to develop and we needed to shoot as many as we could in about an hour. The shoot went well and we got it done.

When we got to NYC the weather was really bad. Very hard rain and gloomy. It stayed that way till 2 hours before the shoot when it started to clear. When the shoot started we could see blue sky through the clouds. We supplemented with some KinoFlos and shot at about 6-8 seconds.

We shot at The Center For Alternative Photography in NYC in a brand new studio. I think I was the first to shoot wet plate in there. Thanks Eric!! The studio belongs to Eric Taubman. What a beautiful place it is! Fantastic skylight!!!

I can not say who or what yet but as soon as I am allowed to I will post it here.

Chris and I have worked together before. He also helped me with the Jack Daniels calendar shoot in 2005. We're getting used to clients telling us, too clean, more defects please Not how I like them to be but when Im getting paid it aint so bad.


A friend of mine who also helped with the shoot and Chris Morgan in the studio.

great news Bob.
let us know as soon as you can ,what mag to look for.

How exactly do the logistics of that skylight play out? Seems to me the whole thing is wrong, putting the camera back to a position in photo number 1, the light is behind and above the subject. Moving to the position on photo number 2, seems that a long focal length lens would not allow the camera far enough back to do full standing photos...

am I wrong in this?

Ray-

Camera was set in the corner-ish (1st pic....somewhere between me and Raleigh) with the background/subject being placed just under the ledge that can be seen in both images.

Background/subject was at a slight angle to the skylight...not quite 45 degrees...little more open to the light. There was enough room to
get seated and standing images of the subject on 1/2 plate. Larger plates would have been tougher.

Shooting across the window would have yielded too much sidelight for the subject and would have been tight

I would have loved to have been able to pack that skylight up and thrown it in the van to take home!!

C. Christopher Morgan
~Wet-Plate Collodion Artist~
North Carolina

wetplates.blogspot.com

Plenty of room Ray. Shoot with your back to the skylight. You can also control how much light hits the back drop by moving the backdorop behind the overhang like Ive seen on some period studios. Not sure why you think its wrong. It has pull down blinds from the top and pull up blinds from the bottom for control.

I only use long lenses for head and shoulder shots. Why would you want to use one for a standing shot?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2011 11:09PM by RobertSzabo.

I guess the picture you guys posted gave me the wrong impression of the direction of shooting and the spaces involved. good there are blinds and controls.

wow Bob! Congrats on this! You see, good work will out....

Very cool Robert.... all your lenses went back home, to New York City were they were born 150 years ago.