Special Glass, Silver Baths, and Collodion For Negatives

I’m Very Grateful and My Goals

I’m so grateful for this space and to have the time to work here. I just want to make that public. I’m very fortunate and I know it! I’m looking forward to working full time on my projects, experiments, and really doing a deep dive on Wet Collodion Negatives. My goal is to explore several different POP processes with my “evolving” negative-making process.

What Did I Do Today?

I prepared 12 pieces of glass; Whole Plate (8.5” x 6.5”) size. I also made 500 ml of Collodion for making Wet Collodion Negatives. This is a HIGHLY iodized collodion. Sutton talks about it in his book that I did a series of videos on. If you are interested, you can find them here. I sunned and cleaned my silver baths (#1 and #4). I have four different baths at any given time. They are always in rotation for maintenance. I usually carry at least two into the field. I have one adjusted for positives and one for making negatives.

Highly iodized collodion for making negatives.

One bath for making positives and one bath for making negatives.

Clean glass ready to albumenize.

Also, I have some special glass for plate making. Not special in one sense, it’s soda-lime glass. And it’s the most common form of glass produced. It’s composed of about 70 percent silica (silicon dioxide), 15 percent soda (sodium oxide), and 9 percent lime (calcium oxide), with much smaller amounts of various other compounds. It’s special because it’s 1.25mm thick and is notched (I place it in the “top right” position). Those are kind of special attributes, especially for me making wet collodion negatives. It’s incredibly strong too. The notch always lets me know which side is the collodionized side.

Wednesday and Thursday: Plate Making Days

This Wednesday and Thursday, I’ll make some test plates in my new space. Not a big deal for most, but for me, it’s been almost two years since I’ve been able to do this. I was busy building the house and getting all of the infrastructures in so we can live here. I also had to build the studio/darkroom building and then build out the darkroom. A lot of work, a lot of time and a lot of money! All worth every minute and every dime.

And It Begins!!

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!!

Old School Darkroom Door Installed

I have the sinks plumbed and just put the old school, spinning, darkroom door on. It fits perfectly! I’ll commit to securing it after I KNOW I have everything inside the darkroom that I want.

Fits like a glove!

I’m taking a break today and doing my Studio Q Show LIVE! Join me if you can, it’s at 1000 hrs MST / 1800 CET time. I’m covering James Reilly’s book - the chapter on Albumen printing!

Almost There: Darkroom Build Update and How To Stay In Contact

THE BUILD

Looking back, we’ve done so many things over the last two years, really five years, here on the property and I’m proud of us, especially Jeanne. She has worked as hard, or harder than me. I’m really grateful for her and her attitude in helping me build this darkroom. It humbles me to see a person selflessly give her time and energy (and money) to build me something. I’m not saying she won’t get anything out of it, but she’s not even thinking about that, she just wants to see me get this facility up and help me do my work. Again, I’m eternally grateful and humbled by her.

THE PURPOSE: MAKE ART, ENJOY LIFE

This is the first time in my life that I can spend all of my time working on my personal photographic projects. Over the years, I’ve worked hard and achieved what I’ve always wanted, a debt-free life where I can spend my time doing the work I feel is important and that has no ties to money or power. I want to enjoy the fruits of my labor, and I will!
So, for the foreseeable future, I’ll be a full-time artist working in historic photographic processes. I won’t stop the technical teaching, but it will be centered more on my work and how it (the technical stuff) applies to it. This will not be a commercial venture either. I will not be asking anyone for money. No monetized YouTube channel, no Patreon, nothing. Just my work, my technical experiments, and the results. The only caveat will be the sale of prints, plates, or books that may come from the work. And that will be minimal (material costs, shipping, etcetera). Again, this is not a commercial thing for me, I’m over that. I want to be free of that burden and don’t want people to be saddled with it if they are interested in my work. This is the first time I’ve been able to do that, too! It’s very exciting and liberating!

10’ (3M) of darkroom sink space, shelves for my Graylab timers, developers, etc.!

KEEP ME IN THE LOOP - STAY UPDATED
I’m not really sure what’s going to happen with my social media accounts in the future, I’m may delete them at some point, I’m not sure. So, if you’re interested in following me over the next few years, I’ve set up a simple little “signup” that will send you an email once in a while to inform you of a video, experiment, or work I’m making. Go to my contact page and scroll to the bottom, you’ll find it there.

Looking from the outside - I still have the darkroom door to install, but that will be the very last thing. It’s time to organize and get everything in it's place.

Stocking some of my dry chemistry… there’s a lot of it. Happy to see it unboxed again.

My Graylab timers and red lights up and going!

My Graylab timers and red lights up and going!

A View Looking West On Our Property and a Darkroom Update

We have some beautiful rock outcroppings on our property. You climb up to the top and this is the view (or one of them) looking west over the valley. It’s so gorgeous up there! This photo was taken in July. It was wet and green this year. Everything grew wonderfully and all of the animals got fat. It was a good year. And NO fires!

We start painting the darkroom today! I’m a week, or less, away from being able to use it. It’s been a great project and one I’ve been looking forward to finishing. We had a house and all of the “living things” to do before this, but this is what I was really looking forward to!

Tape, Mud, Sand and Paint

That’s all there is left to do now! It might be one more week, if the weather holds.

Fitting trim - the only things left are taping, mudding, sanding and painting. We see the finish line!

Progress With the Darkroom Build

Jeanne and I work on this every day for a few hours. We have other things to do, so we take small steps every day and it’s working out great. The weather here is wonderful. Today, it was sunny, calm and 65F (18C) and tomorrow will be sunny calm, and 68F (20C). The secret of Colorado is this wonderful weather! At this altitude, you’d think we’d be freezing cold day and night in November. Not at all.

A few more sheets of sheetrock that need to be put up and I’ll do the drains/plumbing for the sinks, then it’s mudding and taping and finally painting. We see the finish line!! So excited!!

Looking at the outside of the room, ready for drywall.

In progress drywall work.

In progress drywall work.

Darkroom Update

We are getting very close to having a completed, functional darkroom. The electrical is completed and all of the plugs and lights work great. I’m running off of a solar panel system - it’s called an EcoFlow. Great unit! The ceiling is insulated and drywall is completed. That’s a big job for two people to complete. We did end up getting a drywall lift, A 4’ x 8’ piece of drywall is a big piece to hold over your head almost 9’ - not happening. So, I’m glad we took an extra day to drive to the nearest (bigger) town to rent that piece of equipment. I’ll do another update soon, for now, we’re really close to being finished!

Photographic Experiments: My List

Greetings!

I hope this note finds you healthy and happy. We are doing well and enjoying the beautiful fall weather and beautiful scenery here in the mountains.

You’re probably reading this because you’re interested in what I have planned now that my darkroom and studio are almost finished. I have a list of experiments that I want to accomplish before I start my new project. And if you’re into historic photographic processes, I bet you’ll find it interesting.

First things first, in that order. Starting next year (maybe a bit even this year) I want to make a new body of work. I plan to make mostly landscape work (The Red Earth Project) but am not going to limit myself or “box myself in” on anything, so I’ll just keep it open. In order to make the work, from a technical standpoint, I want to experiment with several different processes for making glass negatives. I’ve spent months going over 19th and 20th-century photography literature on my Studio Q Show LIVE! on YouTube. Every Saturday, for over a year, I’ve presented technical information on the Wet Collodion process and many other processes and variants. I’ve been doing the show for years, but have been doing the weekly show for 15 months now.

I’ve concentrated on “finding the perfect process for making negatives” - or searching for different processes to accomplish that. This will be the basis of these experiments. Normally, I would just pursue the project in the Wet Collodion process, but I want to push the envelope with this work - do something unique, hence my research and experiments. The old-timers had something special going on with their negatives and prints. You’ll never see anything today that can compare to the work made in the 19th and early 20th centuries I want to “find” their secrets! And now, I can work full time on it to make it happen!

My goal is to make Rawlins Oil Prints on glass. In other words, the negatives that I make will be used to print (positives) on glass. The Rawlins Oil process is beautiful. You can see some of my experiments from 2020 here. I know what my final product will be, the question is “how do I get there?”

So, what are the experiments going to involve? Here’s a shortlist (if you’ve watched the videos you’ll get a better grasp of what these mean).
1. Sutton’s Iodizer Only Negatives (Method #1) - August 7, 2021
2. Sutton’s Bromo-Iodized Negatives (Method #2) - August 14, 2021
3. Sutton’s Albumen Printing (with Method #1 Negatives) - August 21, 2021
4. Sutton’s Dry Plate Processes - With Tannin and Gum Arabic - August 28, 2021
5. Long’s Albumen on Glass - September 25, 2021
6. Towler’s and Photographic News Albumen on Glass - October 2, 2021
7. Monckhoven’s Collodio-Albumen on Glass - October 9, 2021
8. Mr. Madd’s Collodio-Albumen on Glass - October 16, 2021
9. James Mudd’s Collodio-Albumen on Glass - October 30, 2021
10. James Reilly’s Salted Paper & Albumen Book: Arrowroot Salt Prints - November 13, 2021

There are a lot of little ancillary tests and experiments I want to do as well. For example; Sutton’s washing and resensitizing the wet collodion plate for increased sensitivity, Estabrooke’s ideal collodion (viscosity), and how it takes on the iodides as well as some developer additives; i.e. gelatin. It should be fun, entertaining, and very enlightening!

Wiring, Insulation and Drywall Next

Door framed and ceiling joists going in.

It’s a large darkroom. Bigger than my previous darkrooms. It will be my last (I think) so I went big!

We’ve had very good weather here. Highs in the 60s (15-20C) and mostly sunny. Very nice working weather. We’re getting ready to do some electrical work today and finish the ceiling joists in the darkroom. Then we’ll finish insulating and then paint it. Only a week or two left, depending on how many days we take off to do other things. We still have to put our gate up (Ghost Controls) and close the greenhouse.

A few more goodies from the greenhouse before we close it down for the winter. Next year will be amazing. We learned a lot about what grows up here and how to do it.

I think we may start shutting the greenhouse down today. Not completely, but the tomato, squash, cauliflower all can be culled. We are going to compost the plant (remains) and soil for next year. We’re starting a large compost bin that we can add to and use from year to year. Next spring, we’ll build two raised beds for the greenhouse and have some floor space for potted plants. It really surprised me how well everything did this year considering we had a late start and all. We learned a lot and even got to reap quite a lot of vegetables. I can’t even imagine what next year will bring.