This Sunday I gave a wet plate tutorial to photographer Lee Garland.
His very first plate. He says it was a fluke!
Not a bad start. I then got him to shoot a plate grossly overexposed/dev stopped early and a grossly underexposed plate with extended development to see the effect on the plates and how far you can push things. I think this is a useful tool for a beginner.
A few more of his plates….and a new Facebook profile pic I think.
Several collodion short pours and a few issues with his dev pour but he soon got the hang of it.
He’d not brought his tripod for his 5×4 camera that he wanted to try out. My Manfrotto was at work so we attached it to the wooden Gandolfi tripod. It does look a bit weird but was rock solid.
Later in the afternoon his partner Anna joined us and sat for a couple of plates. She even shot one of her own later on, well, she took the lens cap off.
Using the Watson Studio camera with the Darlot cone lens.
Two whole plates from the end of the day, one ambrotype and one tintype. By now his collodion and dev pours had improved hugely.
He even had a go at a couple of 35mm slr plates.
I look forward to seeing what he does with wet plate there was already talk of a darkroom in the garage as he was leaving.
Sorry for the dodgy digital plate captures.