(click the image to enlarge)
The above poster (des. Kasia Kesicka) promoted a collodion portraiture event, which took place during
Americana & Roots Weekend in Greystones, (Ireland) last weekend, and was organised by my collodionist friend
Kasia Kesicka and myself.
It quotes a poem of Lewis Caroll, British writer and poet, best known as author of 'Alice in Wonderland', who was also a passionate photographer - 'collodionist'. He wrote the above poem about the wet plate collodion process and we decided to honour the event with the same title. (whole poem
HERE)
It was a vibrant, very interesting weekend and I must say - everything went very well. We met with a big interest from the public and had quite a few happy clients, who decided to have their own ambrotypes or ferrotypes.
Although we both already worked on location earlier, it was a first time when we took part in re-enactment event, open for the public. We had plenty of concerns (i.e. if and how to varnish plates on the spot), but I think we created a well organised team and managed everything well. (plates taken on Saturday were varnished at home and were ready for collection the following day, and on Sunday plates were varnished on the spot, with traditional varnish)
We also learned a lot from each other as we use different collodion receipts, different equipments and Kasia works mostly with metal plates, myself - with glass.
All in all it was a great experience!
Gallery of ambrotype portraits taken:
