In the digital era, I always find it impressive when I see photographers who still use wet plate collodion process. And it’s especially impressive to see all the fun projects and DIY stuff they make. Photographer Michaël Tirat has built his own DIY portable wet plate darkroom and he put it on a tricycle. It contains everything he needs so he can cycle around Bordeaux, France with it, take photos and develop them on the spot. We’ve chatted with Michaël a bit about his interesting project. He kindly shared some details about his build, the challenges he faced, as well as some photos.
How to modify an 8×10 sheet film holder for shooting wet plate collodion
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While it was once the only way you could really shoot a photo, wet plate photography went off almost into the realm of complete non-existence just a few years ago. Lately, though, it seems to be making something of a comeback. Much of the hardware isn’t as easy to get as it once was, although it seems to be more popular again now than it has been for a very long time.
One problem to be overcome with wet plate, though, is actually loading the plates into a large format camera. You typically can’t just use a regular sheet film holder. At least, not without alteration. In this video, photographer Markus Hofstätter shows us how he modifies his 8×10 film holders for the wet plate process.
The entire start to finish process to make ultra large format wet plate photographs
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Despite picking up a little in popularity in the last year or two, wet plate photography is still quite an alien process to many photographers. More and more information about it pops up onto the web every day. What I’ve not seen, though, until now, is an entire start to finish video or article which details the entire process.
Thankfully, photographer Markus Hofstätter has done exactly that, in this video. So that you don’t miss out on any of the process, he shot the whole thing in 360° with his Insta360 camera for the complete surround experience. So, throw on your headsit, sit back, and have a watch.
Photographer mixes old with new – shooting Halloween wet plates filmed on a 360° camera
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I’ve seen some rather interesting Halloween photos cross my desk over the past week or so. Few that are quite as interesting as this project from photographer Markus Hofstätter, though. Shooting some Halloween portraits on large format wet plate. Best of all, he shot a behind the scenes video showing how it was done. While it’s not a 360° video, it makes some fairly heavy use of a 360° camera, with some pretty cool effects and transitions.
Photographer coloured a 100 year old glass plate portrait in Photoshop using neural networks
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There’s something special about shooting analogue black and white for me. It takes on a quality and a character you just don’t get with modern colour digital. Fortunately, now, we have a choice. So, if we want to shoot flawless colour, we can. A hundred years ago, there wasn’t so much choice.
We’ve featured Mathieu Stern before. He makes some great videos reviewing old lenses and offering tricks and tips. In his latest video, Mathieu shares some personal family history with us. A trip back through the generations to find a photograph of his great, great, great uncle, Mr Albert.
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