west coast winter wet plate portraits

Leah
4x5 ambrotype

So after fall's home renovations and then the holiday season, I now get to spend some time in the dark...ahhh...the darkness. I was unsure whether I would have any satisfaction from my old reddened collodion or my wayyy too old developer, but even with the dark rainy Canadian west coast day, I managed to make some shoe portraits. Since no one was home and the dog can't manage to sit still for a whole 90 seconds, it had to be shoes...

taken with a 4x5 speed graphic with a petzval type lens, for 90 seconds, on a very dark and rainy day.

Extreme Analog on Elgin St

I'm meltiiiiinnnngg......no, I am not made of sugar, but, oh my! heat and humidity are not friends of liquid emulsion. We had a full day of shooting and as the day heated up so did my metal plates which resulted in images dripping right off the plates! Luckily the morning was cool enough that I was able to get some interesting shots of Dave the butcher on the street at our local Bridgehead. I suppose it is a curious site to see me load up my speed graphic and put that dark cloth over my head. Extreme Analog