It's a long way...

Many hours hidden in the basement have passed, many plates have been wasted, many mistakes have been made, but the Collodion project is slowly taking shape. Everything is so radically different when compared to my darkroom work: all the chemicals have to be mixed from substances most people have never heard of, precautions have to be taken as some of the liquids are flammable or toxic, and once you get the hang of it, you get overexcited, so you end up having prepared too much developer (or too little, even worse) or too much Collodion that will age and finally become unusable. I won't complain, as this new adventure in the world of traditional photography gives me much pleasure, but I have to admit that there is no way of mastering wet plate photography after one single try, as you might expect if you have started in black&white darkroom work. Fortunately there are a whole bunch of books that can help on the way, chief among which Quinn Jacobson's "Chemical Pictures", but this doesn't mean you can simply buy some kind of kitchen recipe and everything will work in a jiffy. Concentrations, temperature, the chemical's age, everything has an influence on the result you will finally obtain!

So is it disappointing? In one word: no! Surely not. I've decided to have a go on Wet Plate Collodion because it is still much more of a challenge: at the end of a session, bathed in alcool- and ether-fumes and having created only a handful of good plates, you get a feeling of achievement you just don't get with any other photography technique. So I'll keep going, and soon you'll see many more results on here!