Landscape photography with a mobile darkroom.

When I started experimenting with wet-plate collodion, I imagined it would be a great medium for landscape photography: I thought that the vintage aesthetic of the process would marry well with the grandiosity and timeless quality of Colorado landscapes.

Flatirons, Co.

 So from the beginning I had in mind to take collodion photography on the road, which comes with an extra set of challenges. I have mentioned before while describing the process that everything (from preparation, sensitization of the plate to developing and fixing) has to be done within a few minutes (while the chemicals are still wet). In the field, this requires special organizational skills and a mobile darkroom.


In the early days of collodion photography William Henry Jackson explored the Rockies with a few mules carrying his heavy equipment, which included large cameras, glass plates, chemicals and a darkroom tent. Although I have seriously considered using a couple lamas for my landscape photography (and still love the idea of traveling through mountain vistas with a few of these wonderful animals) I had to revamp my traveling collodion wish list and be more realistic.

As a result, my first set-up looked like this:

All my equipment (camera, tripod, darkbox, chemicals, water, trays and tanks) nicely fit in the back of my minivan.

I constructed a darkbox out of cardboard, following a design by Tom persinger (http://www.f295.org/site/?p=1047 ). This lead me to this:

When getting ready to take a photograph, I would be sitting in the trunk of the car (where you can see all the equipment on the photograph) and preparing and processing the plates inside the darkbox (which is set on the folded back seats), the dark cloth laid over my head and upper body. My safelight was a red bike light taped to the roof of the box.

Although this worked very well in good weather, in inclement weather I was very exposed to the elements and had a lot of trouble (and poor images) when the wind blew (which is very common in the mountains...). Also my set-up probably looked weird to the passerby, for while parked on the side of the road, half of my body would disappear inside the cardboard box, whereas my bottom half would be offered to everyone to gaze at...

I still love the design of the darkbox and was amazed how easy it was to build (Tom's article was an invaluable resource) but I had to come up with another solution to improve my landscape photographs.

I have now upgraded to this set-up:

After doing some research and some thinking, an enclosed trailer seemed the best and most affordable solution for a serious mobile darkroom. Plus it looks great behind my Papamobile!
The trailer was fairly easy to light proof: some caulking and weather stripping were necessary but no major work was needed. Right now the inside is very very spartan, but has worked for me.

I have recycle the carboard darkbox into a table/storage unit.

I am still using the red bike light as a safelight and added a battery operated room light.

Now, as the trailer is a bare canvas, there are a lot of possibilities for improvement. I am planning to add counters, storage space and possibly a sink linked to a water tank. Anyhow, I am on the market for free used kitchen cabinets to turn the trailer into a dream mobile darkroom and will update you when the inside looks like this:

In the meantime, I've got work to do.

Denis