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I built a Frankenstein large format wet plate camera from scratch for photographing ghosts

Corrine at Corrine West Photography booked a wet plate workshop with me before the pandemic started. Two years later we were finally able to do it. The main subject was to get comfortable with the wet collodion process and to create images similar to the ones of spirit photographer William H. Mumler. Mr. Mumler created images (probably double exposures) where his clients could take a picture with their deceased relatives.

The photograph of Mary Todd Lincoln with the “ghost” of her husband (Abraham Lincoln) was his most famous one. Corrine found my double exposure wet plates and that was the reason she contacted me in the first place. About two months before the workshop Corrine surprised me with a question: “Can we build a wet plate camera together?”. I talked with a friend and after a long visit to a DIY market, I was sure that we can do it. A DIY Camera and capturing ghosts. That sounds like a fun workshop to me!

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Shooting high end food photography on wet plate large format looks amazing

Everybody knows that I work exclusively on collodion wet plate portraits. So what’s the reason for food photography now? Let me try to explain. Many of you guys will remember that I bought a Cambo studio stand some while ago. A little bit later I bought a used tray for it on eBay. The seller was very friendly and somehow we started to talk about photography

Long story short, a month later we decided to do a project together. After months of planning, Hans Gerlach (a well-known food photographer and columnist) drove over to my studio and brought his tools and some delicious food with him.

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Resurrecting a broken 50-year-old Linhof tripod with a little DIY repair

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There is a lot of old camera gear out there and I regularly see people showing off their “finds” on social media. Usually, though, it’s cameras or lenses. Often in decent working condition, too. Occasionally, though, they become repair projects, and following that process is fascinating. Less common, though, are anything photo-related that isn’t a camera or a lens… Like a tripod.

Well, Markus Hofstätter found himself in possession of a 50-year-old Linhof tripod that had apparently been involved in a bicycle accident and was in pretty rough shape. Being a big fan of really old camera gear and also being pretty good at repairing it, he decided to see if he could give this old Linhof tripod a new life.

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Photographing wildlife with 4×5 large format camera and expired film

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These days, for sports and wildlife shooters, it seems the smaller sensor cameras are often favoured for the “extra reach” with long lenses. Most wildlife shooters I know, at least up until the days of mirrorless, were shooting fast APS-C DSLRs like the Nikon D500 and Canon 7D Mark II. Some have switched to Fuji and even Micro Four Thirds mirrorless.

But for some photographers, bigger is always better. And that certainly seems to be the case for Markus Hofstätter. We’ve featured Markus a bunch of times here on DIYP for his wet plate photography, but attempting to shoot wildlife on a 4×5 large format camera, especially with expired film is definitely a little… extra.

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Is wet plate photography dangerous? Well, yes, it is

Wet plate photography’s one of those mythical analogue photography processes to most of us. All we know is that some liquid gets poured onto a piece of metal or glass, it goes into a camera, the shutter is fired, magic happens and we get a photo at the end of it. But one person who definitely understands the wet plate process is Markus Hofstätter.

Markus has made it not only his passion but he also shoots wet plate photography for a living. He knows all the ins and outs of it and has made some pretty remarkable images with it. But in this video, he takes some of that fantasy away and shares the reality of working with wet plate and how dangerous it can sometimes be, particularly when it comes to the chemicals used.

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How I shot a portrait of two people 7,000km apart on a single wet plate photograph

This is not about a technical perfect wet plate. This is about building connections from thousand miles away. Overcoming obstacles and being there for each other.

This 5-minute exposure captured more than just an image, it’s a short movie where the plate captured our thoughts and movements. Thanks to Shane Balkowitsch to be a part of it.

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If you ever wondered where the phrase “Watch the birdie!” came from, here you go

“Watch the Birdie” – that’s what my parents told me, to make sure I look into the camera before they took a photo of me. I guess lots of you guys remember this saying. With the renovation of a 140-year-old historic brass birdie, I show you the origin of this phrase.

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How I shot this wet plate portrait of a sword-wielding medieval knight

The task was clear – an original portrait of a Medieval Knight Sword Fighter (national champion).

So I planned to do a collodion wet plate of a knight with his armour and sword. My first thought was, that an original armor has no “color” so to say. You just see the reflections of the environment. That was the reason I wanted to shoot the first portrait in my garden. Unfortunately, the weather gods were against us and just after when we started a thunderstorm was on its way.

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Photographer creates coronavirus stop motion animation using large format wet plate photography

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There is no doubt that the current coronavirus situation is affecting the lives of much of the world’s population. Events are being cancelled, schools closed, people are “self-isolating” and entire countries have been locked down. It seems like nobody can escape its effects anywhere. How we respond to those effects, though, is often quite personal.

For wet plate photographer, Markus Hofstätter, the response is to make art. It’s how he responds a lot of things that bother him or affect his life in a meaningful way. Naturally, his preferred medium is wet plate photography. But Markus went a little further than normal with this shooting seven separate images, which he turned into the stop motion animation you see above.

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Photographer gives new life to a 160-years-old giant Petzval lens

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Austrian photographer Markus Hofstätter has shared a few of his impressive projects with DIYP so far. His latest project is as always ambitious, unusual, time-consuming, and totally worth the effort.

While walking around a flea market, Markus found a huge 500mm Petzval lens, produced around 1860. It was in a pretty bad condition, but Markus had an idea. He bought this rare gem, restored it, and took some fantastic portraits with it.

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