Selection of wet-plate collodion photographs

Near Gross Reservoir, Boulder, CO.

Flatirons, Boulder, CO.

Officer Gulch, Frisco, CO.

South Boulder Peak, from Eldorado Spring road, CO.

Plainview Road, CO.

Summit Lake, Mount Evans, CO.

Summit Lake, Mount Evans, CO.

Eldorado Canyon, CO.

Eldorado Canyon, CO.

Four Mile Canyon, After the fire.

Rocky Mountain National Park, CO.

Portraits with vintage lens - bis

A few weeks back, we had family members visiting from out of town. It gave me the opportunity to continue testing a new collodion formula and my no-name petzval lens. Here are the two portraits I made:

Aaron

Becky.

Near Gross Reservoir

Somewhere in Colorado.

Eldorado Canyon State Park

After a few-months hiatus, I was happy to be back shooting in the field. I went back to a personal favorite: Eldorado Canyon State Park.

Denis

Catching up with my compost - II

Here are a few more tintype "from the compost":

Radishes Tops.

Germinating Potatoes.

Orange Peel.

Tomatillo Skin.

Sweet Potato Tops.

Sweet Potato Peel

La Lettre De La Photographie

Part of the series "From the compost" is featured on the website La Lettre De La Photographie. I couldn't be happier.

Take a look by clicking on the following link: Weekend Portfolios.
Denis

Portaits with a vintage lens.

I mentioned in a previous post that I started experimenting with portraiture using artificial lighting. I invested in two Fotodiox C-1600 lights:

 

And fitted each of them with 16 daylight balanced (5500K) CFLs. The CFLs are 100 W equivalent. 
I had read that a few wet-plate photographers were using them with good results for portraiture and still life  photography.


Unfortunately, even at my lens largest aperture, my exposure times with this set-up for portraits have been in the 30-40s range. Although this produces for the sitter an experience similar to what people went through in the late 1800s (meaning painful and unpleasant), it made portraiture very impractical.

I thought that part of the problem was using a modern lens with multi-coating, which possibly filtered out a lot of the UV light that collodion responds so well to. I decided to look for a fairly cheap vintage (and uncoated) lens and found a 10 in. Baush and Lomb brass lens:

At this point I have mounted the lens on a temporary black foamcore lens board with black tape. I just couldn't wait to get a lens board made to try it out.
This is the first portrait I made with the B&L lens:

Rachel.

This photograph has a very different quality than anything I have produced so far with my modern lens. It has a pretty soft focus, very shallow depth of field and evident distortions. It wasn't quite I expected but the aesthetic is growing on me very rapidly. I see a lot of potential with this lens.
In addition I am happy to report that my exposure time was only 12s. It seems that indeed the coating on my modern lens increases exposure time. However I also made a slight change to my chemistry, so I will have to do a side by side comparison to verify this conclusion.

Yesterday, a fellow photographer visited me to witness first hand the making of a wet-plate collodion photograph. I made a portrait of him in the same conditions as Rachel's image:

Marco.

Catching up with my compost

Broccoli

Deconstructed Beet.

Sprouting Patatoe.

Lemon.

Apple cores.

Pear.

Zucchinis.

Eggplant.

Eldorado Canyon - Ter

This is the last image from Sunday's shoot:

I got to catch a climber waiting for his turn at the big boulder by the river.

Denis

Eldorado Canyon - Bis

Eldorado Canyon.

Here is the second shot of my outing to Eldorado Canyon:

The plate is a little over-developed. While processing the image, I saw that a part of the sky had not received any developer, by the time I tried pouring developer there, I had gone past my developing time...

Eldorado Canyon

I apologize to the few of you who follow the blog, it has been a while since I posted anything new...
Be reassured, I haven't lost interest in wet-plate collodion, it is still very present in my life and my current favorite photographic medium. I have a very specific project in mind, it is an exploration of portraiture and of the specific characteristic of collodion photograph. The project is pretty involved and the photographs I have taken so far are not yet where I want them to be. I am not quite ready to share them...
However, today, for the first time in three month, I went out and took some landscape photographs. My goal was to get back in the groove and to test my new very wide angle lens. In the past I went to Eldorado Canyon, but couldn't really capture the place because the canyon is so narrow that my normal lens only covered a small portion of the cliffs.
Here is the first shot of the day. Far from perfect, but enjoyable nonetheless (I think):

At the entrance of the park.

Denis

Finally a book!

Hi,

I finally got my act together and created the first book coming out of the Collodion 365 project. Just on time for the holidays! The book showcases some of the photographs from the series "A Collection of Somewhat Random Specimens".

Please take a look:

A Collection of Somewhat Random Specimens by Denis Roussel | Make Your Own Book

Also coming soon, a special Christmas bundle will be available for purchase. Stay tuned!

A visit from Stephanie

Yesterday, Stephanie Sadler, owner of Teal Art Gallery in Breckenridge, stopped by to pick up some photographs from the series "From the compost".
I took advantage of her visit to show her the wet-plate collodion process and make the following portrait of her:

Stephanie.

We took this picture outside, in my backyard, in the shade of the neighbor's house. I used a blue background, which comes out pretty light. Stephanie did a great job staying still for the 9s exposure.

If you ever go to Breckenridge, you should definitely stop by Stephanie's gallery. It is right on main street, the space is beautiful and the artwork is visually stimulating and intellectually engaging. You can also check the gallery's website at: www.tealartgallery.com.

Shooting ambrotypes in Boulder, CO

Recently I have been working with ambrotypes: wet-plate collodion photographs shot on glass.

In the past, most of my images were done on aluminum coated with a black enamel paint. I buy the aluminum cut to size; I only have to peel the protective layer of plastic and it's ready to roll. This made my life easy and I liked it!

But I also enjoy challenges - as you might have noticed when I decided to pull a trailer carrying 80 lbs of equipment and chemicals with my bike, on a rugged trail... So here I am cutting glass, cleaning it with alcohol, cleaning it in my dishwasher, cleaning it with whiting... When the glass plates are finally cleaned, I sub the edges with albumen (a mixture of egg white and water). This helps the collodion adhere to the plates and avoid the lifting of the emulsion during processing.

On Monday, a friend, Larry, stopped by to witness the production of a wet-plate collodion photograph. After shooting a small alumitype successfully, I did my first 8x10 ambrotype:

Larry.

And today, I headed toward Boulder, parked my car near Lee High street and shot a couple ambrotypes of the Foothills. They came out really nice.

Today was a good day!

8x10 collodion landscapes.

After having done my first 8x10 plates at home, I needed to see if I would get decent results in the field. I had some doubts on the size of my portable cardboard darkroom and was also curious to see how much more difficult it would be.
I put my darkbox in the back of my trusty Toyota Sienna (not the most glamorous car, but it's the right size for this type of work) and headed out towards Eldorado canyon. I parked at the Fowler trail head.

I couldn't lug my camera very far - which I expected since it weighs 16 lbs - but found a nice view of the foothills:

Fowler Trail, near Eldorado Springs

My cardboard darkroom was very cramped, but I managed sensitizing, developing and washing inside. I had to fix the plate outside the car, but that worked just fine. I am happy to verify that I can use my current workflow for the larger plates.

Here is the second shot of the day:

Fowler Trail.

It was a beautiful and quiet morning.

First plates out of the Calumet C1

Last Friday, I finally got all my equipment and chemicals ready to give larger plates a try. It was almost as challenging as my first day in wet-plate collodion photography.
I got very used to my small 3.25x4 in plates and was very comfortable with the process. Going up in size threw me for a loop. I couldn't hold the larger plates the same way so I had to relearn all the gestures. It took me a while to figure out a procedure that felt right.
Eventually I got a decent first plate out:

First plate.

When Elaiza came home from school, she let me take a portrait of her. This is the second plate of that day:

Elaiza.

I really like the size of the new plates, they have a presence that can't be ignored.

8x10 lens

I received my new used lens yesterday:

Schneider Symmar S 360 mm

I can not wait to get my chemicals and give 8x10 plates a try!

Home-made Red Plexiglas Silver Tank

As I am moving up to 8x10 I have to upscale a lot of my equipment, including my silver tank. I had built my first tank out of red Plexiglas and decided I would do the same. The tank looks great and the red Plexiglas filters out some of the light that could fog my plates. 

Here is a picture of my old silver tank:

It has worked great and I have loved it, but I wanted to change the stand. When I had the Plexiglas cut last year, the two triangles of the stand cost me as much as all the other pieces. Also I wanted a tank with a smaller footprint for transport. I like the design of Lund Photographics ‘ traveling tanks and decided to emulate their stand.

Here is the plan I used to get the Plexiglas cut:

 

Here are all the pieces:

I just needed to assemble them.

Half of the tank gluing.

I inserted the stand hardware before gluing the top of the tank.

Tank of the left and cover on the right.

 

I made the stand out of aluminum: 1/8” thick and ¾” wide. It was easy enough to drill through and to bend into shape:

 Here is the finished product:

Front

Side.

Eventually I will put a rubber gasket in the lid and install latches to make it waterproof and allow the transport of silver nitrate in the tank itself.