Two weeks ago I travelled in time. Photography-wise. It was the weekend of my long-awaited wetplate workshop. Wetplate photography is one of the earliest photographic processes and has lost nothing of its fascination over all those years. On the contrary. Especially nowadays when it doesn't matter if you take 10 or 100 pictures, the constraints and requirements that these old processes impose upon us are an experience that goes far beyond photography.

That weekend all of us created about 10 plates and we were working on it almost eight hours a day. It's a fully "physical" process that requires craft, chemicals and finesse. You start from cutting and polishing the glas plate, over to mix and put the chemical liquid on it. Then you have about three minutes to take a picture until you have to develop your plate, fix and water it. After that it needs drying and varnishing. All in all I think I needed about an hour for a plate. An hour! You can imagine how much the picture means to you afterwards.  And you will never be able to create exactly the same picture twice. It's sad and good at the same time.

When I compare the techniques of today and the past I cannot say that one is better than the other. They are too different and I see advantages and disadvantages on both sides. But the moment when the plate is in the fixer and you watch the actual picture appear bit by bit while carefully swaying the tray... this is magic.

Thank you so much, Dave, for sharing your knowledge and for creating this fantastic workshop!

And now for something completely different!

Last weekend, I put away my digital friend and made the acquaintance of a stranger. A beautiful, wooden large format camera. Or in other words, I travelled a little bit in time... to the beginnings of photography.

I attended a Wet Plate Collodion process workshop. Not only that the workshop had a wonderful, patient teacher and really nice participants, so that it was a lot of fun anyway - I simply fell for this technique.

I don't know if you have ever heard about it? It's a process that was invented in the second half of the 19th century to bring images on plates. And it involves all you can imagine about how a photographer's work looked like 150 years ago... It's mostly about chemicals, mixing and measuring, working with different materials (e.g. alu or glass), large format cameras, heavy equipment, etc.etc.etc.

You have to be quick but very even-tempered, because every mistake will show later in the picture. So, you pour the mixed collodion, which is a thick, adhesive and quick-drying liquid slowly over the plate (in my case aluminium plate) and then it goes some minutes into a silver bath. Afterwards you have only some minutes to take the shot and be back with the collodion plate in the dark room where you develop it. This it is in very brief words... And here are some pictures (all taken by Jan Eric Euler Photography)  of me while developing - oh, I was nervous...

Tadaa, there came the picture:

It is an extensive process but the result is fantastic. I think it's rather a photographer's niche, but if you are passionate about analogue photography and ever get the chance to try it out, I can only say: do it!

The scans below cannot really transfer this, but the pictures on the plate look almost like you can grab into them. They look like from another time but with familiar faces. They shine and the shades are almost magical... I'm still so excited about it, that it is really difficult for me to put it straight and short here for you - but I tried :)

And this is me on collodion:

(I only realised that they are my first selfies on this blog, so, hello to all :) )

PS: You can find info about the workshops and more collodion pictures by Jan and participants on his Facebook-Page.