Chemical Pictures - The Wet Plate Collodion Photography BookI'm very happy! After many iterations, the cover of my new book and DVD is finished. Sometimes, I think over-thinking can be as bad as not thinking at all. I may have over-thought the cover, at least on the first few iterations. Remember, text out of context is a pretext. I had some "pretext-ing" going on.
I'm very happy with the results of this cover (click on it to see it bigger) and of the book and DVD. It's been a project I've been working on for years. I published one other book on the process in 2006. That was mostly for my graduate work and I didn't feel like I had adequate time to include everything that I wanted to. This work includes everything you've always wanted to know about making positive Wet Plate Collodion images and even some things that you don't want to know about. I'm very proud of this piece. It's based not only on my own personal experience working in the process for a few years, but on primary literature. Over the last two years, I read and studied every 19th and 20th century manual or book on the process I could find. I was amazed and enlightened at what I found. Not only is there everything in the old manuals that you need to learn the process (technical, formulae, etc), each photographer had their own interpretation and ideas on what worked the best. Not unlike today - there were several people who called themselves "masters" of the process. However, a lot of them had glaring flaws in their techniques and methodologies - the recipes and techniques conflicted a lot. I found it very interesting and entertaining, to say the least.
A lot of people deserve credit for this book and DVD. I've asked people all over the world to be involved in it - contributing everything from a piece on artificial lighting to collaborating on this cover - it's been a great experience and I want to thank everyone that's helped me - I'm truly thankful (and Summer will thank when she's paying her tuition, too.)
The next step: I have to make some changes (after the second editing process) and wrap up the online content (.flv files) and then wait for the printer to make my books and DVDs! Oh happy day!