I’m very excited to have been included in Absurde Magazine’s May issue with so many talented artists.
Click the link below to see the magazine.http://issuu.com/davidh_psycho/docs/absurde-magazine-may-2013#download Photographer: James WeberStylist/Creative Director: Fredo MontesHair and Makeup: Chuck JensenPhoto Assistant: Rico ElvinaVideo: James SullivanCopyright 2013 James Weber Click on the images to see them larger.
Well after a long time of dreaming, thought, planning, and dedication, I've finally got the Giant Wet Plate built and ready for use. It's been a lot of fun trying to make this project work out. It all started when I got the first piece of the project...the 6.3 20in. Air Ministry Aerial lens and thought of the possibilities it created. HUGE thanks to Larry Baglio for helping me through the build and working out the details with me. It took us about an hour and a half to get it built the first time, but now that we've done it once, It might only take 15 minutes to set it up again.
See the beginnings of the idea here: http://jamesweberstudio.com/blog/?p=1665
I knew the lens had a huge light spread, so then it was just finding the enclosure that would work the best and go from there.
Christophe from New York Models was kind enough to send Vince(pictured below) over to the studio to make this test a good one. :)
Funny enough, the enclosure that worked the best turned out to be a "Grow Room" for weed....lol. The fun secondary benefits included some very nice openings that were meant for ventilation and lighting, but ended up working out as a great place to put the lens and the light. It's truly a light tight room and perfect for the shell of the Giant Wet Plate Camera.
Here's a shot of the inside with the lens and light. You can see the P-50 reflector in the shot above. The great thing about the placement of the light is that it's so close to the lens. This allows me to light up my subject with my Profoto Bi-Tube and 2 7a 2400 packs. It's 4800 watt seconds of power per shot. You can actually feel the air off of the strobe when it fires. It's pretty crazy the amount of light that it puts out. Collodion needs a lot of light to work, so this, plus a little extra time after the flash is enough to get a great image. The ISO is around .25 to 1.
The inside of the camera is also the darkroom. Because the plates are so big, they have to be tray sensitized(silver nitrate), developed, fixed, and washed.
The Siver Nitrate and development is done within the camera turned darkroom.
So strangely enough, the focusing and shooting of the camera are done INSIDE the camera. :) The backplate moves back and forth manually inside the camera to focus. You see exactly what you get right in front of you.
When zipped up, it's completely light tight.
Here's the start of the process, where you pour collodion on the plate...
pour from James Weber on Vimeo.
After you shoot the photo and have it developed, you have to then fix it. Here's the first big plate that I shot with the camera.
Wet-Plate-James-Weber from James Weber on Vimeo.
I'm very excited about the possibilities the camera creates. I'm planning to continue my portrait series and eventually, take it on the road to do some big landscape Ambrotypes, Glass Negatives, and large Aluminum plates. The possibilities are endless...
Portrait of Vince Dickson. © James Weber, 2013
Until next time...
Ok, I've become a little obsessed. I guess when you go off into something new, it starts off small, but ends up becoming more than thought it would be when you started. It's frustrating, messy, complicated, fairly expensive, but OH, SO enjoyable when it works out well. I didn't realize how much I missed the darkroom and getting my hands dirty until I found wet plate. The process is wonderful. It slows you down and makes you think about exactly what you want to do. There is no rushing into anything. My friend Rico Elvina was kind enough to come by one of my shoots and take a few photos to show what goes into making tintypes, ambrotypes, and glass plate negatives the way they did in the late 1800's. Since then, I've been a little busy getting all of the tools I needed to shoot wet plate. You have to be 1/2 alchemist and 1/2 photographer. There's a lot of chemistry that goes into just preparing to shoot. Some of it is quite hazardous. Wear your safety goggles at all times making the chemistry. :)
A little video of me showing all of the chemistry needed in the process. I was mixing up a new batch of developer and collodion this day...shot on my iphone.
IMG 2976 from James Weber on Vimeo.
Ok, the music is a little dramatic, but I had to set the tone for the scene...haha. ;)
Preparing the plate with Collodion...
In the image above and below, I'm pouring collodion on the glass plate and am pooling the excess into my little patron bottle. This creates the base upon which the silver nitrate can attach to the plate and make it light sensitive. Patron bottles are the best thing to use as they are really strong and have a nice wide mouth...and you have an excuse to buy them full...hahaha. The box next to me is called a, "Dark Box". It's where you load the sensitized plates and develop them.
Showing my model, Anna the process. I Loved the coat she was wearing. It's very, "Game of Thrones". :)
While I'm waiting for the silver nitrate to take hold(3 minutes in the tank for ambrotypes), I get the subject in focus.
To focus, you push and pull the back plate until the image is in focus where you like.
The image is upside down and flipped horizontally as well. Type reads backwards in the final image.
Above: I've got a headlamp on with a red filter on it for use in the dark box. Collodion is not sensitive to red light, so it's the only light you can use to see what you're doing in the dark.
Me with my Anthony Imperial Climax 8x10 camera. The lens is made by Voightlander and is circa 1875.
The light I use is extremely bright. It sounds like a gun going off when the light fires. You have to use a LOT of light in wet plate, as collodion is about 1 ISO, or needs 8 times more light than a normal camera at 100 ISO.
Ok, my apologies in advance. :) It's not the most flattering photo I've ever taken...lol. This is me inside the, "Dark Box" developing the plate. This has to be done in a dark room or dark box. The good thing about the dark box is that you can put it in the back of an SUV and take this show on the road...
Now the fun part...fixing the image and seeing it for the first time.
To see the image, you have to put a glass plate negative or ambrotype in front of something black. The tank behind the image is the Potassium Cyanide Fixer. Really dangerous stuff. You have to be careful not to ingest it. It's poisonous. Respect the chemistry at all times...
Here are some of the plates I shot of Anna that day...
8"x10" Clear Glass Negative
8"x10" Ruby Glass Ambrotype
8"x10" on Black Aluminum
8"x10" on Black Aluminum
There was a second model the same day, but unfortunately we only got off 2 shots. Something was wrong with the chemistry. Her name is Kate and I hope to have her back again soon to finish up our shoot. :)
8"x10" on Black Aluminum.
I've just started this portrait series, "Faces". I don't know where it's going to take me, but I don't have too many parameters to confine it. My main focus it to shoot very natural images of people. Not a lot of hair/makeup. Try to get something in them to come out on the plate...strength, vulnerability, sadness. The eyes are the windows to the soul. Every now and then they let something out. Hopefully I can capture something in them.
To see some of the guys I've shot for the project, you can see them here: http://jamesweberstudio.com/blog/?p=1941
Many Thanks to my good friend, Jesse Mata, who is also a wet plater and has given me so much help and support with this process. He has also lent me his 11x14 camera to play with...should be even more fun. :)
Would you trust this guy?? haha...I took this self portrait...my "Yoda in the woods" shot on John Coffer's farm. This was where I learned to shoot Wet Plate. I wrote about that experience here: http://jamesweberstudio.com/blog/?p=1376
Thanks, James
Along with the other work that Cat and Kerri did with me for my Black Silk Nudes project, we shot some wet plate that day as well. The first one, below is an 8x10 Ruby Ambrotype.
Here's a photo that show the color of the glass...Ruby Ambrotypes are nice. They have a nice warm feel in person, but if you put something black behind it, it looks like the above image.
The above image was shot on alluminum.
This one was shot on Black Glass.
I also had some fun with my Polaroid SX-70 and The Impossible Project's Instant Film, PX70 COLOR SHADE for the behind the scenes.
And here's a few of Kerri. My favorite of the day was this one, below...on alluminum
The light was a 2K Arri with a silver card fill. 12 seconds
So I recently picked up a few boxes of the new Impossible Project 8x10 instant film. I've been waiting for this for a long time. Polaroid made the last 8x10 batch in 2006. It's been so long that the pods have all dried up, which makes it unusable even if you could find a box on ebay. Enter the Impossible Project. The Impossible Project had bought all of the 8x10 production machinery from Polaroid just days before they went into bankruptcy. They focused on all of the smaller films first, but finally, they were able to put their attention to starting up the 8x10 production. This is some of the film from the first production run. I took a workshop at The Impossible Project office to make sure I got a handle on how to use the new film. It's not a peel apart film like the original polaroid was, although you still need the polaroid processor to use it.
First thoughts are this is a very cool development for old process lovers. Being able to shoot this format will bring a whole new generation to large format photography and keep it alive. The artistic possibilities are also something that you will never get from digital or some filter that becomes the new rage. Instagram can't create these effects. There is something to be said for doing it the analog way.
Below are the two shots I took. One of their employees, Kyle, was kind enough to model for me.
You could actually just keep it like this and that could be your final product. But....there are other options of what you can do with the new film. I experimented with 2 of the options.
1. Do an emulsion lift and put the lifted emulsion onto some other medium. In this case, I put it on some 300 gsm matte paper(below), which is my favorite application for polaroid.
2. Scan the negative side, invert it, and blow it up from there(Below). I definitely see some fun applications for this. I love the dark, mysterious nature of this.
First things first. Get your tools together. Cut off the edges of the film first. That will make the lift so much easier.
So, I took a few videos showing how I did the emulsion lift. It's a little different from the original polaroid lifts. You used to have to boil water, then put the polaroid in. With the Impossible Project film, you just need hot water, comfortable to the touch.
Just play them one right after the other to see the process.
Sorry about the sloppy film work here...I took my eye off the camera a few times...lol.
Ok, so I forgot to shoot this image for the other photograph...so this is where you use a piece of transparent film to get the emulsion out of the water. You can now shape the emulsion how you wish it to show up on your fine art paper.
So I used a 300 gsm paper for my base. It's good to use a thick paper as otherwise the wetness will make it curl up. I used Matte Medium for the adhesive base. Just use a brush to apply evenly.
Once again...sorry, we're switching up images to show you the last phase...forgot to film it on the other one.
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Here's the inverted Scan again. You have to bring down the blacks quite a bit to see all of the detail.
It's funny, I learned that by baking the emulsion in my attempt to dry it out faster, it actually made it turn sepia. So, if you like that, get your bake on. 300 degrees, keep the door open, and cook until you like it...just don't burn it. ;)
As you can see, it now has a sepia tonality to it on the top. The print was hanging out of my little toaster oven, so the bottom is still more black and white...so I thought I'd keep it that way.
Well, that's it for now. I'm going to do another shoot from start to finish and try to make it one movie next time. Until then, I hope some of you go out, pick up some film, and keep this wonderful large format art alive!
-James
Hey everyone, Well, I finally got a chance to do the second nude in my series with a wonderful model, Abigayle. I had an idea, that as I have a 12 second exposure, why not use that time and do some creative blurring of fabric using the wind machine.I'm very excited to be shooting on two types of glass for the first time. Black glass and Ruby glass ambrotypes.
There is something about this old process creating these unique works of art that you can't create in any other way. It's wonderful, because you can do subtle variations using lighting, time of exposure, developing, etc, to make each one a little different. I wanted to have the fabric moving fast so it would blur out. I wasn't sure what the end result would be, but I thought it would be pretty cool. I'm very happy with what came out. I'm looking forward to continuing the series and incorporating more of this motion blur in my work.
The Camera: Anthony Imperial Climax Studio Camera. Voightlander lens circa 1875. I'm not sure of the aperture, but I think it's around 3.6.
I had the pleasure and opportunity to work with the Soffer Collective and Artists and Creatives in their charity auction for Breast Cancer Research.Two of my works of art were chosen for the show. Both prints sold and the auction in total made $11,000 for charity. Woo Hoo!! :)
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Me with some of the other artists and organizers.Much love to
, the restaurant that held the event. If you get a chance, please go. The food is amazing and the service impeccable.
Now that I’ve got all the necessary materials, I can finally green light this project. I’m going to do a series of nudes on glass negatives and various metals, tin and aluminum. I’m really enjoying the process, but it’s very strange ending up with only a few plates from each shoot. The setup + taking each shot is around 30 minutes / plate. In the first plate, below, we shot it three times to try to get it right. There goes an hour and a half. 
We shot 6 plates and I ended up with these three that I liked the best. It certainly makes you take your time before you take the shot. Here is the lovely, Eden…
Eden I: In this first shot, I was trying to get it a little sharper, but after 3 attempts, it was just too hard of a position to hold for 10 seconds. I used a 2k hot light here, which is usually a lot of light for normal film or digital cameras. In wet plate, which is around 1 ISO, you need a lot of light to record an image. The shot grows on me the more I look at it though. I think a lot of these images are going to have a different feel to them due to the process, and it’s one of the things that I’m really enjoying about it.
Eden II
Eden III: I’m not quite sure what caused the white areas in the top left and right, but they’re in the image. It can’t be wiped off. My silver nitrate is new, so I’ve heard of such things happening with that…more mysteries in wet plate land.
That’s all for now. Look out for the next one soon…
James
So...let's just say that it doesn't always work out the way you want it to. Kind of a life-ism, possibly, but many times true in Wet Plate Photography. I was on vacation in upstate New York and had the chemistry on hand...had the camera in the car, but no dark box and no red light. Without the darkbox and light, there would be no wet plate shooting...but I HAD everything else...so....I thought I'd give it a shot and create a quickie, cheap Dark Box with light. I headed to the dollar store and the hardware store. For about $60, I build my darkbox and had a flashlight with an untested red tupperware filter...see below. Collodion is not sensitive to red light, thus you can have a red light on in your darkroom and not expose the film. Usually you need a red glass filter over your light.
So this is my DIY Dark Box Project that Almost worked and a few very interesting plates that came from it...
Ok, so at the dollar store, I found some red tupperware lids that had an opening as wide as the flashlight that I bought. I thought it was perfect!. I had no idea if this was good enough, but I thought it was a shot.
Here's the quickie dark box that I created out of some simple cardboard and packing tape.
add in a large tarp for the light proofing and there you have it! Darkroom in a box. :)
Ok, so all was well. I had the chemistry, the dark box, the camera, materials...let's find a destination.
I was in upstate New York, near Naples and I remembered a really old cemetary there that I drove by that was near our bed and breakfast. I thought it would make an interesting backdrop. My wife and I took off and found it. I found a tombstone that I thought was interesting. The name on the tombstone was LYON. This person was alive from 1815-1902. There happened to be a LYON Street in the town of Naples as well, so I'm sure this individual's family had something to do with the town's origins. It was also one of the more beautiful tombstones in the cemetary, half of which contained graves of people born in the 1800's. Since I was shooting an art form that was also born in the 1800's, I thought it would be an appropriate place to document.
So here's the moment of truth...was my red tupperware filtered light good enough, or not the right red(it was only tupperware...)
Let's just say that it didn't go as planned...
Both of these images have been flipped in photoshop so that you can read it. In the original plates, the words would be backwards.
The red tupperware over my flashlight ended up not being good enough. It was exposing my plates from the beginning. Interestingly enough, they're still beautiful. The cross, in both photos shows up and the tombstone's LYON also shows up.
So, a miss for a nice wet plate, but it was a learning experience. They are quite interesting plates even with them being as flawed as they are. Since this time, I've built a proper dark box and I'm SUV Ready for travel. :)
James
