For the past year & half I've been diving down the rabbit hole of wet plate/collodion photography. Sometime using a 4x5 Chamonix but since March have mostly been using a Kodak 2D 8x10 with pre-1865 lenses. I only photo outdoors, and that's more difficult than I imagined. For starters I have to coat the plate, shoot it, and develop it all within about 15 minutes. Next, the developing has to be done in the dark (under red light.) That means I need to take a portable dark box along in addition to the chemicals. Finally the chemicals, developer in particular, must be kept as close to 68 F degrees as possible. Not easy when the temperature is well below freezing or around 95 F! Since wet plate is sensitive only to UV and blue spectrum light, you can't really meter it. You have to guess exposure, develop, and make exposure correction on the next shot. It takes me about an hour to make a successful photo. I've only been doing tin types so far, which are positives. I have the capability to make negatives on glass but so far haven't. After 15 months I'm starting to make some successful images. A couple of weeks ago I hiked my 4x5 and supplies down into a valley to photo a waterfall. I've mostly concentrated on learning wet plate, but have been shooting a few dry plates as well. I've used my Nikon D850 a few times this year too. Wife and I love to travel and usually take about four nice trips every year, but we're both too nervous about plane rides this year. We have taken several "safe-cations" to some very desolate areas--western South Dakota, eastern Wyoming and Montana, southwestern North Dakota. No tourists go there, mostly see antelope and Angus out there. I like to photo abandoned churches and Western landscapes and got some nice photos. It gave us a nice break. We ended up spending a LOT of time together for days at a time. That was OK as we're best friends.
So, what happened to Rob C.? Looks like he disappeared back in June. I hope he's OK.
Kent in SD
