We had a beautiful day here on the mountain. Sunny and 63F (17C) - the same for tomorrow. Winter isn’t too bad up here, but I love the sunshine and warm weather!
Well, I gave it a go and I’m super excited!! I exposed one of the four plates I prepped for the CADP dry plate process. In my haste, I forgot to ALBUMENIZE THE PLATES BEFORE I poured the collodion. So, inevitably, I had MAJOR peeling, wrinkling. and lifting. I knew this would happen but I did it anyway. I picked the worse one for the test. Having said that, the test was a MAJOR success. These negatives are so different than wet collodion negatives. I can see already the extreme detail and the possibilities this holds. I love it because it still looks like a “wet” process but has a lot more detail.
I set up at 12:30 - I made one exposure at f/11 for 4 minutes. I developed for 5 minutes using the methodology Mudd describes in his book with a couple of changes. Super excited to get this process in my pocket. Really get it down, the preparation, the exposures, the development, and ultimately, nail the prints. That’s my goal. This now gives me access to places the world has never seen before as glass plate negatives and Platinum Palladium prints (w/Gum Over Palladium).
Tomorrow, I’ll expose two more plates and develop them. I hope to stop the lifting and peeling (so bad). The next batch of plates will be perfect. I can have this process down in a few weeks’ time.
Scanned and inverted. Looks like something they found in the archive at LOC ;-)