Wet Plate: Cat and Kerri

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

Wet Plate Nude - Abigayle

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.

My lighting was a 2k hotlight and a 1.2k hmi, which is why you see 2 different shadow intensities. Exposure was 12 seconds. Old workhorse collodion + cyanide fixer.

Black glass

Black Glass

My biggest problem with the shoot was seeing the image in the dark box.  I really had no idea until I left if there was an exposure...I have to work on my red light inside the box.  A lot of guess work went on...

Ruby Glass

These last two are moodier.  I love the edge detail that comes from doing wet plate.  It makes each image one of a kind.

Lastly, here's one on aluminum...

Here's a little behind the scenes video i shot...

Wet Plate Nude - Abigayle from James Weber on Vimeo.

Peep Show - Art Auction for Breast Cancer Research

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!! :)

peepshow2

peepshow1

Above, top left, one of my Evolution Series prints was chosen. Below that, one from my smoking series was also chosen.

peepshow3

peepshow2

Me with some of the other artists and organizers.Much love to 

Japonais

, the restaurant that held the event. If you get a chance, please go. The food is amazing and the service impeccable.

Wetplate Nude - Eden

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