In the past few months, I have been experimenting with ways to render my wet-plate equipment more portable. After putting all my gear on a motorcycle and riding the dirt trail of the Colorado front range, yesterday I backpacked and shot tintypes for the first time.
Of course, I wasn't able to fit my Calumet C1 8x10 in this backpack. I decided to purchase a Mamiya RB67 with a polaroid back to make small (3.5 x 3.5 in) plates.
For my portable darkbox I modified a very old changing bag and built a lightweight tubular frame to manage an inside space:
I cut a window in the bag, taped rubylith on a plastic support and used velcro to hold this in place.
The bag is just big enough to put my small silver tank or my developing and washing trays. It was a little bit tricky to get used to the set-up:
I still have to iron out a lot of details, but I am psyched that the set-up worked and that I made two beautiful little plates:
Here is a short video of the process, thanks to my 7-year old daughter, Enora:
