A portait session with Richard

On Saturday I had a shoot with Richard, he had contacted me via my Model Mayhem profile I’d recently created.

I’m trying to start shooting more portraits, I’ve never been a “people” photographer, even my professional digtal jobs are for museums, art galleries and archives, those subjects tend to be pretty static and don’t interact with you. So I see any shoot where theres a model involved as a far greater challenge.

This is Richard Glen.

We started off small with half plates… as usual here are the plates, I don’t cherry pick the best to blog about but like to see how my work progresses (if at all) over the shoot.

This is one of the test plates, under exposed and hence over developed with chemical fogging. I quite like it. Half plate ambrotype.

Half plate ambrotype.

Half plate tintype.

Whole plate ambrotype. This plate I really like.

Whole plate ambrotype. Richard preferred this one?

We then moved on to the Hunter Penrose camera, this was more of technical exercise for me, regarding the collodion pour, the handling of a large plate and then the dev pour. I’m feeling quite comfortable working at this size of plate now, not sure how I’ll be with the full size plate of the HP camera though.

12×15 inch ambrotype. Working at this size enlargement means the slightest movement seems over exagerated. They look quite soft to me, I was in two minds whether it was the lens or not. I’ll do some test on a static subject I think.

12×15 inch ambrotype.

12×15 inch ambrotype.

Thanks to Richard for his enthusiasm and patience, I’m sure we’ll be shooting more plates.

As I said above I’ve never been a “people” photographer, a shoot with a model is a whole different ball game to me. Its partly the interaction with a stranger that I’m interested in at the moment, shooting someone I know doesn’t have the same challenge to me. If we build a rapport/relationship then maybe a body of work will be created over time. Anyway, thats another story, I have to figure out how to put into words (never my strong point), especially as its had me dig out my 3rd year degree work for re-evaluation, I might even post it up to this blog.