WPC workshop Killruddery summary.

Although it's already 3 weeks after the workshop in Killruddery I'd like to make a short resume of this event and introduce a lovely group of brave photographers, who decided to take part in this dangerous and exhausting venture :)

This is an ending portrait, so, as you can see they stayed in quite a good form after all this.

my lovely workshop group: Alice, Nick, Stephen an Sally (from left to right)

They worked very hard  throughout the whole weekend. They cleaned a huge amount of glass:

this is just a small part of what was cleaned, they seemed to enjoy it ....

they were blinding themselves with bright lights, trying to sit still and motionless for a loooong time....

they were concentrated...

...very concentrated....

and they were choosing their subjects very carefully...

But sometimes they had enough and were trying to hide....

....well,  'Mystic, awful was the process.'(Lewis Carroll, 'Hiawathas Photographing')...

All in all everything went very well and a couple of nice plates were done. Here is the proof - a sample of their results. Well done everyone and thank you all, it was a great weekend!

Collodion with Marta

On Sunday I met with Marta and we went through the whole wet plate process and did a few plates together.

Marta is a very talented and ambitious photographer and picked up easly all the stages of the process, having a perfect 'pour' (of collodion and developer) from the beginning to the end of the workshop.

Some backstage images:

and the results:

Marta by me:

Sunday afternoon..

..with lovely people.

Lucie

David

Jane

WPC Workshop

I am pleased to announce that I am organising a wet plate collodion workshop in Killruddery House and Gardens at the end of March. There will be a lot of hard work, and a good fun too, hope the weather will behave.

basic information:
2 days, group of 4,
chemicals, equipment, manual and lunch provided,

Brief Program

Day 1, morning

1. Introduction:
History and overview of the process, chemicals, equipment needed,
darkroom set up, organization,
Health and safety recommendations.
Care and maintenance of chemicals.
Mixing chemicals.

2. Preparation of glass plates, sanding edges and cleaning.

3. Demonstration of the complete process. (camera set up, pouring a glass
plate, sensitization, exposure, development, fixing and washing)

Day 1 afternoon, day 2

4. Practicing, practicing, practising

Making plates by student – as many as you can,
Individual guidance with the process, trouble shooting,
work with natural and artificial lightning,
work with darkbox in more remote areas of the Gardens

5. Demonstration of the varnishing technique. Varnishing.

for more information contact me at:
fabijanczykphotography@gmail.com
0860783053

Salt print.

It is not too far from albumen to salt printing (albumen is essencially a salted paper print, using albumen as binder). It is actually much easier to prepare salt solution then the eggs' whites albumen, and it's less smelly!

Same fixer and silver sensitizing solution, as for albumen, can be used - at least that's what I did.

Just mixed water, salt and gelatine (- most popular receipt, details below).

The main issue stays the proper negative. This time I've used an old, one of my first collodion portraits, accidentally overexposed - waiting  for printing test until now :)

..a lot to learn on this processes, it's just a record of the first tests..

30 min exposure, halogen lamp 400W, 4x5 WPC negative, water colour paper

Receipts:

5 grams Sodium Chloride

0.5 grams Gelatine
250 ml Distilled Water

Mix gelatine with one fourth of the water and let it bloom a bit. Heat the rest of the water and dissolve Sodium Chloride (Sea Salt) in it. Then mix the two together. Cover the paper with salt solution and leave to dry.

Sensitize with - I've used 15% silver nitrate solution in distilled water, that I've prepared for albumen first. (different sollution can be used, most typical - 12%, but 15% should result in increased contrast). Leave to dry.

Expose. Wash in water. Fix (again - same as for albumen) :

75 grams Sodium Thiosulphate anhydrous

(as I had only ST Peptahydrate I've multiplied the required amount by 1.56 =117g)

500 mL Distilled Water

1g sodium carbonate (washing soda, which you can buy or you can 'do' (like in my case) by heating baking soda) (some receipts do not include it)

Wash well - ca 30 min.