Like a Hole in My Head
This is a self ambrotype portrait (my lovely wife tripped the shutter) on a 3.25" x 4.25" piece of clear glass.
I made a make-shift 1/4-plate holder out of an old 5x7" film holder, and tried out a new (old) camera and lens for this shot. You can see how fragile the collodion is on glass, and how it simply peels away at times, seemingly for no reason, but most likely from (me) not cleaning my glass plate well enough. I also had some rough edges from my unskilled glass-cutting techniques! You can also see where the silver wire (I used to hold the plate in the film holder) reacted with the other collodion/bromide/silver chemicals and created some whacky blooming growth on each corner.
I like this self portrait mostly because of all its flaws. The hole in my head shows a bit of how I've been feeling lately, as well as speaking to the fragility of the medium, the image, the person, the thought, the memory and life in general.
1/4-plate ambrotype (wet plate collodion on clear glass)
15-second exposure with two CFL banks and daylight
Goerz Dagor 9.5" lens from 1908 (wide open at F6.8)
Eastman View #2 5x7 camera
Like a Hole in My Head
This is a self ambrotype portrait (my lovely wife tripped the shutter) on a 3.25" x 4.25" piece of clear glass.
I made a make-shift 1/4-plate holder out of an old 5x7" film holder, and tried out a new (old) camera and lens for this shot. You can see how fragile the collodion is on glass, and how it simply peels away at times, seemingly for no reason, but most likely from (me) not cleaning my glass plate well enough. I also had some rough edges from my unskilled glass-cutting techniques! You can also see where the silver wire (I used to hold the plate in the film holder) reacted with the other collodion/bromide/silver chemicals and created some whacky blooming growth on each corner.
I like this self portrait mostly because of all its flaws. The hole in my head shows a bit of how I've been feeling lately, as well as speaking to the fragility of the medium, the image, the person, the thought, the memory and life in general.
1/4-plate ambrotype (wet plate collodion on clear glass)
15-second exposure with two CFL banks and daylight
Goerz Dagor 9.5" lens from 1908 (wide open at F6.8)
Eastman View #2 5x7 camera