I have finally planned a dry plate collodion workshop with Jeroen de Wijs, THE man if you really want to learn the collodion process (wet or dry) inside out. It’s a two-man-3-day-workshop which will take place the 2nd weekend of March. I am soooo looking forward! This means I can take plates with me when traveling by plane, or to places where a wet mobile darkroom on the spot isn’t too handy. And…learning how to make proper negatives AND learning how to print them using the Salt Printing process. At the TEFAF I’ve seen some awesome waxed salt prints from a/o Margaret Cameron.
Ohhh negatives ready for contact printing…the only debatable thing is the purchase of a 4×5″ Linhof for making negatives…4×5″ is really small for contact printing…I bought it so I could enlarge them but I also want to do contact printing processes…ahhh dilemma haha! Maybe, maybe when I get a hang of the process I’ll jump to a camera that makes 30×40 cm plates, imagine A3 negatives on glass…oeff…what’s that for p**n huh 😉
Anyway, first moving the entire darkroom which is a challenge on its own. I almost cleared out the DR by now, did a lot of work today. What’s not in boxes (and will not fit) are the big babies such as the wet table, cameras and enlargers. Can’t wait to build it up again, it’s gonna be fun redesigning!
So…just thought I’d share 🙂 :happybellydance:
Photography Contrastique - Alternative Photographic Processes 
I got really excited reading about dry plate collodion. It would mean me not having to make a portable darkroom, which has been on the list but I have a large list and not getting to it…………and thats the including the fixing my house / life list. Pyrogallic acid is EXPENSIVE! Is there anything that would do the same thing Indra………love this blog. Thankyou for it.
Hi,Pyro is expensive indeed. I might know a cleaper source for you tho. Send me an email at indra at contrastique dot com and I can give it to you. You can also use Iron Sulphate if i remember correctly from the workshop but you will have to develop longer as it’s not as aggressive. You can give that a go. Tannic acid is not all that cheap either really. I found it for €85,- ex vat for 1 kilo. Prices tend to differ a lot. Anyway, happy my blog inspires you! That is the purpose of it 🙂
Hello Indra,
I have been working on salt prints all 2014, and I always use gold toner. When you talk about traditional toners that you could use instead of gold (it is a bit expensive) which toners do you mean? and how do you use them? I tried selenium but went all wrong.
Thanks!
Hi Fernanda,
I am reading back and I think I am indeed referring to Selenium. I have not yet tried that though so not sure how that’ll go. What do you mean by it went all wrong? Did it bleach the image?
Best,
Indra