I’ve been having a lot of fun and learning a lot, this last week or 10 days making wet collodion negatives. What I’ve learned is invaluable and enlightening. It’s been there in front of me for the last 20 years, I just never pursued or tried something different and it paid off.
In a nutshell, I’ve found a collodion mixture, a developer mixture, and a silver bath that performs extremely well for making negatives. Especially for making negatives in my environment. I can adjust it as I need for any POP (printing-out process) or even DOP (developing out process) that I want.
This brings me to my next step(s). I’m getting ready to place a chemistry order with Mike at Art Craft Chemicals. On my list are the chemicals for the following POP and DOP processes:
Rawlins Oil Printing (pigment prints)
Carbon Printing (pigment prints)
Platinum/Palladium Prints
These are the main printing processes I’ll be working in for the coming months. I’ll be testing a variety of negatives too. The wet collodion negative is checked off of my list (for this project) but I will be experimenting with Dry Collodion Negatives, the Albumen on Glass process, and the Collodio-Albumen process as well. You can visit my YouTube channel if you’re interested in any of the shows I’ve done on these processes.
I’m after the right negative process and the right printing process to complete my next project. It may be that I have a variety of printing processes I use, I’m not sure. I need to make the work and sample/experiment with the printing processes. I’ve worked in all of them except for the Collodio-Albumen process (for negatives). What’s different now, is the work I’m making - at 8,500 - 9,000 feet (2.590 - 2.800m) above sea level and mostly landscapes. Access to some of the places is not easy (hence the dry plate processes) and the weather can be a factor.
I’ll document everything or as much as I can here. You’ll learn more about the project as I go and see the results that I’m experimenting with.
This is my concrete shovel that I used to build stuff on my property. I made this wet collodion negative in my “north-light” studio setup. It’s a 13 second exposure with a 3B at f/5.6