I’ve had a long wait for this to start, but I’m on my way.
Where do you start again? I say start with fresh Collodion and Subbing Albumen. I was in my studio mixing chemistry and listening (loud and the acoustics are great in there!) to the soundtrack from, “If I Leave Here Tomorrow: A Film About Lynyrd Skynyrd” - the story of what happened to Lynyrd Skynyrd/Ronnie Van Zant and crew. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend you do so. It’s on Netflix.
I made some fresh Positive Collodion, both flavors, KI and NH4I, and I’ll mix some Negative Collodion up tomorrow or the next day. I have a potential project/job coming up in New Mexico so I want to be ready if it happens. If it does and I can show you, I will.
It’s important for me to evaluate the “mobile” concept again. 99% of my work will be done in the field and most of it will be negatives - wet and dry and in between. I’ve set up my space to do post-production work on those methods. I have (north light) studio space to do portraits or still life work, but most of my work will be “on the road”. I’m primarily a portrait photographer/artist, but I think I find remote work (out of the studio) more interesting now. And believe me, I’ll still be making portraits, and even still life plates, but it is limiting to a degree.
We are experiencing very warm weather up here. No snow, which is bad for water, but nice sunny, mild days. I hope it holds for a little while. I’ll be processing some test plates very soon. Another goal is to get all of my lenses squared away. I have a “new” Derogy No.2 lens and I uncovered an 8x10, 1903 B&L Tessar, f/4.5 lens unpacking my gear. They are both unmounted. I have two lens boards from Chamonix, so I’ll get them mounted up and do some “high elevation” test plates with them.
My “new” (very old) Derogy No.2 Lens.
I’ll be back soon with some examples of what the process looks like at this elevation in positives and negatives. I’m super excited! Stay tuned!!
