Anyone ever do collodion wet plates?

Anyone have any books or websites that could point to how to make a wet plate? Anyone ever do it? Is it extremely tricky? Super high quality negatives arent that important to me-

thanks

Dan

I hope your liver likes the aeromatic fumes that you'll breathe.

Contact Mark Osterman at the George Eastman House. He and his wife practice and teach the wet-plate method.

The work Quinn Jacobson is doing at http://www.collodion.com/ is phenomenal.

See also this site: http://www.cfaahp.org/

Clay Harmon and Kerik Kouklis are doing wet plate and can give you a lot of info, you might want to contact them.

Dan,

The book you need is the "do-er's guide" by John Coffer - you can find his address on the net. Hang tight for a bit because there's a DVD coming out shortly to go along with the book.

The other reference is "The Silver Sunbeam" (available online) but it's from the turn of the last century and is a tough read without Coffer's book to fall back on.

I started with Coffer's book and some time at http://www.collodion.com/forum/default.asp

I was getting recognizable plates on the fourth attempt. I'm still learning but am happy with the progress.

There are lots of us who regularly dope ourselves with ether. The most notable presence however are those of the civil war crowd. They have their own aesthetic concerns, but really have the monopoly on knowledge and teaching. Check out www.cwreenactors.com/cgi-bin/collodion2000/dcboard.cgi

I don't happen to be one, but there are plenty of people out there working in it. Do a search here on the forum and in general, and you'll probably come up with some names.

Also, contact the people at photographer's formulary about the chemicals.