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View Full Version : How did those Wet Plate togs get perfect plates compared w dirty modern stuff?



Frank Petronio
13-Aug-2010, 12:00
How come when I see pictures from Wet Plate Collodion photographers like Timothy O'Sullivan and Vittorio Sella they are almost flawless? But based on the plates I see being made by all these modern artsy-craftsy type photographers, I thought wet plates were supposed to be all crunchy and scratched up, with bits of loam and twigs embedded in them?

I mean those pioneering photographers were on mountain tops with mules and weather and crap everywhere.... So with all their primitive technology, how did they get them so darn perfect?

Is there anyone working today who is doing CLEAN wet plates? Or are they all chasing that Sally Mann money... I mean aesthetic... ? Or is it just THAT hard that nobody can match the quality of the old timers anymore?

Jeezum Crow, they were making 20x24s 1000 miles off into the woods!

BarryS
13-Aug-2010, 12:50
Photographers like Timothy O'Sullivan cut their teeth in top notch studios like Matthew Brady's. Those early studios made plates from dawn to dusk (or as long as they had light) and the studio managers knew everything there was to know about wet plate. Lesser photographers from small studios made plenty of crappy plates that you can find today. I don't think there are any modern wet plate practioners that come anywhere near the sheer volume of plates done by a 19th c photographer.

The modern aesthetic also embraces some level of defects--probably a reaction against the easy perfection of digital. However, most serious wet plate photographers at least aspire to the ability of consistently making plates with a minimum of defects. As a wet plate artist friend remarked to me--we'd be fired from a decent 19th c studio. :)

Jason Greenberg Motamedi
13-Aug-2010, 12:55
Nate Gibbons makes clean ULF tintypes http://www.nwgibbons.com/

Kirk Keyes
13-Aug-2010, 13:03
As a wet plate artist friend remarked to me--we'd be fired
from a decent 19th c studio. :)

That's a great quote!

Bruce Watson
13-Aug-2010, 13:43
How come when I see pictures from Wet Plate Collodion photographers like Timothy O'Sullivan and Vittorio Sella they are almost flawless?

Part of the reason is that flawed plates from Mr. O'Sullivan and company got scraped and reused in the field. So there's no crappy plates available for you to look at.

Mark Sawyer
13-Aug-2010, 16:13
More thoughts:

The flaws are usually around the edges, and the edges were cropped off as a matter of routine.

As Barry noted, these were full-time wet-plate photographers. You can't expect to do something occassionally and have the same command a master has. Master musicians practice hours each day, a new potter throws a thousand pots and destroys them before he makes keeper, (at least according to the old addage), but we just jump right in and think we'll get it right.

A lot of wet plate photographers enjoy the "artifacts". Indeed, if you want "perfection", why not buy machine-made perfect materials? Some film and digital photographers are even faking wet-plate artifacts on their conventional images! (On a related note, you never see the Petzval swirl in old Petzval images, but today, it's a sought-after signature.)

All that said, I could make a pretty clean plate within a couple of months of learning the process, (and I wasn't devoting myself to it full-time). These days, I find myself leaving some artifacts in, even though I could easily remove them during the processing.

Bill_1856
13-Aug-2010, 16:59
Retouching was an art which had to be mastered by all successful photographers in those days.

Paul_C
15-Aug-2010, 19:54
The modern aesthetic also embraces some level of defects--probably a reaction against the easy perfection of digital.

I'm reading "The Nature and Art of Workmanship" by David Pye right now and came across an interesting section along these lines (for context, earlier he makes significant distinction between "free" and "regulated" work [e.g. modern wet plate vs. circa 19th c wet plate or modern digital]):


Precision and regularity in those days signified that, to the extent of his intellect, man stood apart from nature, and had a power of his own.

It is really very difficult indeed for us to realize what precision and regularity must have meant and how moving they must have been, when now they are seen in every trivial product of a money-bound society: in the throw-away ball-point pen and the tomato-can. The reflections of the natural order which we see and value in rough or free workmanship must then have seemed far less amiable, a mere reminder of what men wished to part from and be less involved with, now that they lived in cities. We, on the other hand, would do better to make things occasionally so that they do reflect our community with the natural order instead of emphasizing our separation from it; and so that their diversity would stave off the monotony which comes of too much regularity and precision. What was their meat will soon be our poison.

He continues further along with the caveat:


A brisk element of improvisation reflecting the natural order is one thing; but there is an element of improvisation in plain bad workmanship too. The use of free workmanship no more guarantees aesthetic quality than does the use of oil-paint.

and concludes the topic:


But even supposing that every bit of regulated and of free work were good of its kind there could still be no question of establishing the absolute superiority of one kind to the other. Their value is relative to their time and circumstances. Regulation once had a meaning which it no longer has; while free workmanship begins to mean what it can never have meant before.

Vaughn
15-Aug-2010, 20:09
Compare these 29"x40" gum bichromate prints with any gum prints you might have seen elsewhere.

http://www.livick.com/archives/portraits/pg2.htm

There is what people do, and then there is what is possible to do.

Dave Wooten
15-Aug-2010, 20:35
Thanks Vaughn

BarryS
15-Aug-2010, 20:48
Paul- Thanks, I think I'd like to read that book myself--those are insightful observations and germane to trends in phototography.


I'm reading "The Nature and Art of Workmanship" by David Pye right now and came across an interesting section along these lines ...

Brian Ellis
16-Aug-2010, 06:29
"The modern aesthetic also embraces some level of defects--probably a reaction against the easy perfection of digital."

Ah, if only it were so. But tempting as it is to blame all things on digital, the "intentionally bad" aesthetic predates digital by many decades.

eddie
16-Aug-2010, 06:36
basically IMO those old time photographers did plates all day everydy. 7 days a week 12-14 hours a day....long before unions made the 8 hour work day.

so if you were to pour that many plates you would be very good. all bad plates were redone i am sure.

when i started i flowed plates almost everyday for a month and most of the days after that. i got pretty good at various tasks as a result. now if i was doing it 24/7 365 i bet all my stuff would be perfect.

i can make almost perfect plates at will if i work at it. but i have to work at it as i have not flowed so much recently.

practice practice practice.

AF-ULF
16-Aug-2010, 10:14
A few years ago, I was given about 400 glass negatives from a commercial photographer who photographed in my area from 1880 to 1920. The plates from 1880 to around 1900 were wet plates and the later plates were dry plates. I have printed or scanned many of the plates. The wet plates are not perfect by any means, they have pour lines, thick edges etc. I have managed to track down a few original prints from the negatives, and they look fine. The edges of the plates were either cut off the print or covered by an over matt. Many of the negatives were heavily retouched.

I pour wet plates and I can match the level of proficiency demonstrated in the older negatives. Nevertheless, I do not and have no desire to retouch the "defects" in my plates.

I guess the main problem I have with the original post is the idea that the earlier plates are superior, simply because they met an aesthetic that was different from the one many shoot for today. They are different, but any claim that one is superior or better to the other is a value judgment of the viewer. It's like arguing who was better, Frank Sinatra or the Beatles, Mozart or Gershwin, Frank Gehry or I. M. Pei, Tiger Woods or Bobby Jones, Brett Farve or Len Dawson, Da Vinci or Picasso?

You may not like the aesthetic of showing the "flaws"--I would call them inherent characteristics of the wet plate, so be it. Some people don't like brush marks or brushed boarders on a platinum print, many do. Many photographers reject anything that doesn't look like it came out of the f-64 group; many prefer to not make art confined by such dogma.

The point is: YMMV.

Kirk Gittings
16-Aug-2010, 10:23
It strikes me that WP in its heyday was a primary form of documentation and perfect coatings served that purpose. Now it is mainly an artistic endeavor and the defects are an upfront part of the "I am using an antique photographic process" aesthetic. The intent has changed for using the process.

Personally I love the defects. I have made a few WP's and had a lovely portrait done of me by Bill Schwab and the defects when they "work" (that is contribute to the artistic intent) are sweet.

Vaughn
16-Aug-2010, 10:39
When I was making 16x20 silver gelatin prints from 4x5 negs, any defect was unacceptable. Making my own carbon prints is a liberating experience. Minor defects (small bubbles, beard hair, etc) become part of the process -- as long as they do not detract from the strength of the image. The hand of the artist sort of thing. Once one of my beard hairs ended up in the emulsion and was positioned right on a nude's posterior -- that print did not pass muster! LOL!

Vaughn

Paul_C
16-Aug-2010, 10:39
"The modern aesthetic also embraces some level of defects--probably a reaction against the easy perfection of digital."

Ah, if only it were so. But tempting as it is to blame all things on digital, the "intentionally bad" aesthetic predates digital by many decades.

I don't believe it's a matter of "blaming digital" - the evolution of "easy perfection" began well before digital too. The appreciation of rough workmanship gained steam as the ease and certainty of precise results grew with dry plates and film, but it wouldn't make sense to talk about today's modern aesthetic as a reaction against a (less) easy perfection of 20 or 100 years ago.

Peter Gomena
16-Aug-2010, 12:30
If you look at a series of Carleton Watkins' images from the 1880s, you will see swirl marks and bits of dust and dirt in the plate reproduced as spots in his prints. Considering the conditions he worked under, it is miraculous that the negatives were as clean as they were. I agree that it's part of the process. I also agree that some current practitioners of wet collodion processes might not succeed in a 19th century tintype parlor, but that's not the point. If defects are acceptable as evidence of the "primitiveness" of the process, fine. Heck, Edwin Land probably hated seeing the "defective" edges of Polaroid Type 55 negatives printed as part of an image, but we all loved it. Perfection can be breathtaking. It can also be boring. It's nice to have a choice.

Peter Gomena

Frank Petronio
16-Aug-2010, 13:30
I'm not saying I don't like the rawness either, I've got all kinds of excessive enlargements from small-high ISO film; Type 55 edges, etc. and own a few rough and ready plates myself.

I'm just in awe of how the old timers did it and was wondering how much of the roughness you see now is because of lack of skill - versus intentionally letting unimportant things slide?

Jason Greenberg Motamedi
16-Aug-2010, 13:56
Many modern members of the collodion cult use modified dry-plate holders. These simply don't work well for wet plate and result in many of the odd artifacts and "oysters." Beyond this, some of the current "wet-plate" products are poorly thought-out and built, again resulting in odd artifacts. Also, contemporary wet-plate photographers are using larger and larger plates; quarter plate or smaller were the norm in the 1860s. Finally, others have said it, but it takes years to learn new techniques. You can not go to a one day workshop and expect to understand wet-plate.

I also think--but can't back this up very well--that there has been a decrease in the amount of effort and "craft" which goes into individual pieces of art. Wandering through galleries in New York, Santa Fe, and elsewhere seem to confirm this.

Mark Sawyer
16-Aug-2010, 17:41
I don't believe it's a matter of "blaming digital" - the evolution of "easy perfection" began well before digital too. The appreciation of rough workmanship gained steam as the ease and certainty of precise results grew with dry plates and film, but it wouldn't make sense to talk about today's modern aesthetic as a reaction against a (less) easy perfection of 20 or 100 years ago.

On a tangent... back when I was in college in the 70's there was a general distaste for grain showing up too obviously in the image. Today, the general comment from the kids is, "ooooh, sweet grain!"

Joe Smigiel
16-Aug-2010, 18:45
There are also many other modern wetplaters who pour immaculate plates. Nate Gibbons has been mentioned already but there are also a group of his cronies including John Coffer and Robert Szabo who make perfect plates. Mark and France Osterman also immediately come to mind as does Alexei Alexeev who posts on this forum regularly. And there are more...

I think moderns who wish to make perfect plates find a way to do so. It just takes some attention to maintaining the equipment and chemistry properly. And it takes discipline and practice. The period studio and itinerant photographers making a living at it couldn't afford to get sloppy or have a reputation for defective plates. They did plates all day long and really got to know the materials and conditions they worked under.

I also don't think it is a distinction unique to period wetplate photographers. Most modern photographers making a living at commercial, editorial or portraiture on a daily basis need to have their act together and consistently produce quality results that sells regardless of the process they use. Amateurs can screw around on the weekend, embrace serendipitous artifacts, and slap an art label on their work, but they better not quit their day job.

Bill_1856
16-Aug-2010, 18:57
The Beatles, Mozart, I. M. Pei, Bobby Jones, and Da Vinci. Who the hell were Brett Farve or Len Dawson?

Cor
17-Aug-2010, 04:31
Valid points were brought up in the discussion , ( I am a WPC worker too) and IMHO indeed practice is the strongest factor..one remark on Unrealalex his work was..it's so perfect it could have been shot with film..go figure..

(let alone if you can draw that conclusion based on a image on a screen, hard enough with a "standard" B&W image, almost impossible for a ambrotype or tin type..)

Best,

Cor

Darryl Baird
17-Aug-2010, 07:38
Art label attached... :D

Sometimes the mistake is better than the original intent.

http://www.darrylbaird.com/LF/WetplateFailure.jpg

(downtown) Flint, Michigan, 2009

Paul Kierstead
17-Aug-2010, 08:44
I think part of the answer is the goal: The old timers were trying to achieve technical perfection in their wet-plate process; they used wet-plate because it was what they had. A modern photographer using wet-plate is clearly not trying to achieve perfection, or he would be likely using a different process. He (or she) is trying to achieve a "look". Some may still be trying to achieve perfection, but have limited their process for one reason or another; those would be the ones that look to be more like the old-timer quality.

sanking
17-Aug-2010, 09:16
I believe that a lot of new timers are also trying to achieve technical perfect but just come up short for lack of skill and experience. So they fall back on the excuse that the flaws in their prints are a good thing because the process artifacts show that the print is hand m ade.

There is no doubt but that most wet plate photographers are trying to achieve a certain kind of "look", say the wide open aperture type look that gives focus only on a narrow plane and lots of bokeh in the out of focus areas. But this is an aesthetic issue, not technical.

In my own work with alternative printing I strive for technical excellence and generally discard prints that have obvious process artifacts. That is because I want the viewer to concentrate on 1) the content of the image, and 2) the technical execution of the process that supports content. Process artifacts are, IMHO, distractions that divert our attention from the content of the image and its syntax and focus our attention on the process of how the print was made.

Sandy

Kirk Gittings
17-Aug-2010, 09:31
Sandy, I saw some of your work last year for the first time and (as expected) was impressed with your technical skills and perfect prints. The results are inspiring.

Inspired in my younger days by the work of the F/64 group, I too have always strived for that kind of perfection. But in recent years, I find myself unexpectedly attracted to the work of people like Bill Schwab, who I had the pleasure of working with a little last year.

See:
http://www.billschwab.com/photos/collodion/2008/vase_feather_01_15_08.jpg

I find this work.....perhaps poetic?

sanking
17-Aug-2010, 10:06
Kirk,

Appreciate the comment about my prints But for the record I feel very little affinity with the f/64 school. Those guys would have rejected the type of work I do merely because it is pigment and not silver metal. However, I only reject process artifacts for my own work, not for others who may find them useful as a means of expression. My criticism is directed at those who don't have the skill to control the process and then try to pass off the resulting artifacts as artistic.

I also find Bill Schwab's imagery poetic, but it is more than technique because you get the same impression in looking at his silver and inkjet prints.

BTW, I had the pleasure of spending a few hours up in Asheville, NC last week at Zebra's place. Quite a site with five wet plate collodion photographers scrambling around with their big lenses on LF and ULF cameras and coating black trophy aluminum out of doors. Kind of a phantasmagoric mix of the ultra modern Canham look with the Petzval, but lots of fun.

Sandy

bob carnie
17-Aug-2010, 11:21
I met Stephen Livik my first years at photo school, he was best buddy's with my first year teacher and hung out at our school Fanshawe College.

Vaugh
If you can find the series he did on the amusement parks do so , they were in my opinion the best gum prints I have ever seen.
I saw a show of them 1979/80 here in Toronto.
I have always considered him the best gum printer ever.


Compare these 29"x40" gum bichromate prints with any gum prints you might have seen elsewhere.

http://www.livick.com/archives/portraits/pg2.htm

There is what people do, and then there is what is possible to do.

bob carnie
17-Aug-2010, 11:24
Sandys , current Carbon Prints are on a platform by themselves, absolutely beautiful prints.

rdenney
18-Aug-2010, 05:55
Sandy really hits the nail on the head, as usual. The problem is not with the flaws, the problem is with our sometimes inability to do things on purpose.

Yet another musical analogy: The battle between technique and expression is intense for musicians. Many musicians spend decades practicing drills and scales to achieve technical perfection, and the time they spend doing that must have an effect on their expression. Their expression cannot usually escape mental processes that have been trained all those hours on mundane technical skills.

The expressionists often complain about that effect and its stultifying effect on art. The technicians counter by saying that without technique, any art that emerges is an accident. The expressionist applaud those accidents as being an essentially human process. Blah, blah, blah.

Here's what I know from a life spent listening to music: Genius in expression shines through weakness in technique, but often only with great difficulty. There are certainly examples where the idea conquered the limitations of technique, and one example that comes to mind is the Ramones. By their own admission, they were not really good musicians, but they had an idea that resonated despite those limitations. Part of the reason it did is because they understood their limitations of technique and stayed within those lines.

Which brings me to another point: Great technicians can develop powerful expressions that take advantage of their superior technique, if that expressive genius is within them. Yes, it is possible to be a great technician without being an expressive genius, and it is also true that those who lack expressive genius fall back on technical mastery as a substitute.

Poor technicians can also develop powerful expressions within the limitations of their technique, adopting processes that are easy enough for them to implement without getting in the way of their expressive ideas. Yes, it is possible to be an expressive genius without attaining real technical mastery.

The problem lies with those who lack technical mastery attempting expressive modes that depend on it. The Ramones defined a whole new genre in popular music, but you didn't see any of them sitting in the New York Philharmonic. Yet there have been many popular musicians fully qualified to perform classical music, such as, say, Keith Emerson to pick just one of many examples. If the Ramones tried to do what Emerson, Lake and Palmer did, they would have failed miserably, but then what they did do was a reaction to the album rock that had become an excuse for interminable guitar and drum solos by (hopefully) master technicians.

One thing I learned in my years of play in my own darkroom is that I will never devote the time needed to develop the sort of technical mastery my preferred mode of expression requires. That leaves me with two choices: Find a different mode of expression, or find a different means of technical development. The digital world has actually opened doors for me, because of its precision and determinism. Does that make things too easy? I don't see how. The hard part for me has always been finding something worthwhile to say with a photograph, and that was no easier (nor was it more difficult) when using a wet darkroom.

My skills as a musician are limited at best. Again, I will never devote the time necessary to develop real technical mastery. But then I'm not trying to audition for the local professional symphony, either, nor am I scheduling recitals. No, I play in a community band where I can contribute positively and still gain satisfaction from having made those contributions.

Another important feature that I observe of expressive geniuses: They are driven by some internal motor to develop technical mastery over the form of expression demanded by their genius. If the music that drives a young musician requires technical mastery, you'll find them in their practice rooms playing those scales endlessly. Those who cannot muster up such devotion perhaps often lack the drive for that mode of expression in the first place. They end up frustrated, even when they do attain a high level of technique, because it isn't enough. They end up playing the same community band I do, and sometimes they come to terms with that, but often they just quit altogether.

I've quit photography a couple of times, and maybe that's part of why I did so. Maybe I just didn't have the drive to develop technical mastery because I'd already explored the limits of my expressiveness. But there's something there: I keep coming back.

Many years ago, I was having a beer at a bar across from the stage door of the Majestic Theater in San Antonio. My company was Lee Hipp, then and still the tuba player in the San Antonio Symphony, and we were chatting about the concert that had just concluded. Based on a discussion I was having with mates in an amateur orchestra, I asked Lee which was more important: Technique, or musical expression. His answer: "Yes."

For some photographers, the flaws of wet plate are their mode of expression, and they use it well. For others, it's a mask that they hope hides their limited expressive abilities. As with any "effect", one must ask: Does it support the artistic purpose, or does it distract from it? It's quite amazing how easy it is to answer that when viewing work, at least for oneself. Wet plate photographers from the time when wet plates were the dominant technology were mostly paid for technical perfection, not for artistic expression. Their mode of expression demanded high levels of technique, and they did what they had to do to develop that technique. I doubt it took more practice time than the average orchestral musician of the same era spent playing scales.

Rick "amazed when modern musicians 'discover' that century-old instruments can be played well" Denney

goamules
21-Aug-2010, 20:19
I think I agree with Rick, but it's a lot to read to be sure! Pouring consistent, very good plates (I think it's almost impossible to do perfect wetplate) has been my goal for the several years I've been doing wet plate. 'Tisn't easy. It does take work and some luck to get a good, clean plate.

Interestingly most of the comments on my or anyone's collodion shots talk mostly about the flaws. Many outsiders actually think flaws and other signs of carelessness are intentional methods the artist is using to make a plate more interesting. "Oooh, I love the way [overexposure, fogging, torn edges] dramatizes the intrinsic [evil, good, futility] of your [flower, face, skull...].

I guess because it's such a different look, people love even hosed shots, because you don't get any weird problems with most other processes. Unfortunately, these artifacts and problems have become the goal for a lot of shooters. Basically, when you can get rave reviews or even be on the cover of a photography magazine with quite flawed plates, some probably figure they'll just keep doing what they're doing.

Dave Wooten
21-Aug-2010, 20:42
Sandys , current Carbon Prints are on a platform by themselves, absolutely beautiful prints.

What Bob said.

Ray Bidegain
30-Aug-2010, 10:17
To answer Franks question about the old timers perfect plates. I think that they probably scanned them, and then they cropped the scene, adjusted the contrast and density, removed all the flaws and finally stripped on a fake stock wet plate edge. Why they would do such a bullsh**t thing is beyond me but it made for perfect looking photographs when they posted them on the web.

Ray Bidegain

Mark Sawyer
30-Aug-2010, 12:02
To answer Franks question about the old timers perfect plates. I think that they probably scanned them, and then they cropped the scene, adjusted the contrast and density, removed all the flaws and finally stripped on a fake stock wet plate edge...

Hell, today's photographers are photoshopping the flaws in:

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g139/Owen21k/LionCUPortrait.jpg