When shooting wet plates, you deal with a very light-insensitive process (about ISO 0.5). So most wet plate artists want to get their hand on a fast lens. Wolfgang, a former participant of my wet plate workshop got his hand on a very fast lens and sent it over to me. For the first time, you can get the plates from this project on eBay, starting from 1 Euro.
Some tintypes I made using focusing loupes as lenses
This personal project was born of lifelong pursuit of charting new paths upon the broad field of artistic landscape, combined with an unexplained passion for vintage ground glass focusing loupes. I’ll never seize looking for magical yet unexplored ways in which to see the world, and translating those findings into the language of photography; this is but one such journey.
Photographer transforms symphony hall into the world’s largest darkroom
During this year’s STORY conference in Nashville, TN, photographer Blake Wylie turned one “half-crazy” idea into reality. He transformed Schermerhorn Symphony Center into a massive darkroom and created a tintype live, on stage, in front of 1,400 people. It was challenging, but he did it – and he kindly shared the details of this fascinating project with DIYP.
Photographing a rock band on wet plate with 7500Ws of strobe power
Photographing a group of people on large format wet plate needs a lot of power. Even with a relatively wide f/5.6 aperture, with an ISO of around 0.5 that still needs a lot of light. How much light? Well, around 7500 watt-seconds to be precise.
That’s how much power photographer Markus Hofstätter used for this group portrait of Austrian rock band The Black Proteus. Although, surely being photographed on wet plate makes them a metal band now?
Man buys a $2 million photo of Jesse James on eBay. For $10
From time to time, life rewards you with some crazy luck. Justin Whiting from Spalding, U.K. was extremely lucky to buy a 19-century photo on eBay, which turned out to be a rare portrait of Jesse James, an infamous American outlaw. Whiting bought the photo for only seven pounds (around $10), and as it turns out – it could actually be worth $2 million.
This drone-mounted large format camera made the world’s first aerial tintype photograph
Combining levels of technology from vastly different times is often very fascinating. Sometimes it’s amusing, and occasionally it fails miserable. This time, failure is definitely not the word that springs to mind. For this particular merging of devices, photographer Giles Clement mounted a large format camera to a drone.
Why? To create the world’s first aerial tintype photographs, of course. Not content with simply making a photograph from the air, though, Giles and the team also produced the world’s first drone tintype selfie. Well, if one really wants to bring tintypes into the modern age, then I suppose one has to, really. It does look pretty awesome, though.
Photographer creates celebrity tintype portraits at the Sundance Film Festival
With film’s second demise looking more imminent with each Fuji announcement, wet plate photography gets more and more appealing. Don’t get me wrong, I primarily shoot digital, but I enjoy the process of creating analogue. It not because it “forces me to slow down” or anything arty. It’s just relaxing, especially developing it.
In this video, portrait photographer Victoria Will discusses her celebrity tintype portraits at the Sundance Film Festival. What began with Victoria having her own tintype portrait made turned into a great project with some fantastic photographs.
Photographer explains how to create and shoot wet plate photography
In the modern digital world, what is it that fascinates us about photography techniques that died out maybe a hundred years or more ago?
Whatever it is, you can satisfy your desires a little bit with this video featuring wet plate photographer David Rambow, who walks us through his thoughts and process when working in this medium.
Photographer Creates Tintype Portraits Of Miners Using Silver They Dug Themselves
Sean Hawkey is go-getter. The type of photographer so motivated by his convictions and interest, he doesn’t think twice about undertaking a new endeavor, a new adventure. Hawkey isn’t deterred by difficulty, he has the patience of a saint and those characteristics shine through in his photography. Hawkey has spent over a decade travelling among, photographing, and reporting on a number of different cultures; documenting human interest stories as a freelance journalist. Given the nature of his job, and all that it entails, it’s a given the photographer has seen his fair share of adversity. Being a travelling photojournalist is no career for the faint of heart, but Hawkey need not trouble himself with such things. When the trials of his chosen occupation rear their ugly heads, Hawkey coolly answers back, is that all you got?[Read More…]
Behind The Scenes: Mythbuster’s Jamie Hyneman Gets Tintyped
The team from Tested, including Jamie and Adam of Mythbusters fame, all had their portraits taken by San Francisco based tinytpe photographer, Michael Shindler. Take a behind the scenes look at Jamie’s portrait session and recieive a bonus education on the entire tintype process from Shindler in this 6:30 minute episode of Tested.
According to Shindler, the ISO of his camera when shooting tintypes is about 0.5, about 7 full stops below ISO 100. With that information, you can probably imagine how much light you need to expose one of these portraits. Outdoors on a sunny day, Shindler says an exposure will take betwee 2-10 seconds. In the studio, you need to bring a lot of light to the plate (pun somewhat intended).[Read More…]
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