First Attempt at Wet Plate Collodion

Back in September my friend Stan asked if he could take my portrait using the wet plate collodion process. Of course I said yes…and thought I would record the 'behind the scenes' or 'making of' process.
Stan designed and built the camera himself, he used an old Schneider 210 4.5 lens. He also built a portable dark room out of a plastic storage container.
In total we took 5 photos, and each time we adjusted the lighting or composition to try and get something better than the last image. I was a fun day and maybe one day I should try and do this myself.
If you would like to see Stan's other Wet Plate Colloion photos, then take a look at his website or IG:
stanislavgdovi...
/ stan_gdovin

[@chriscard6544]

Beautiful

[@TheGazmondo]

Great introduction, first class, thanks !!

[@Chiaroscuro1991]

Very well done .. wonderful skin tones. Regards, Scully & Osterman

[@ThereIsNoSpoontang]

Right half of his face at 9:02 with "shades" reminds me of Billy Connolly in "Boondock Saints". Cool video!

[@KNURKonesur]

Really cool idea with the portable darkroom! Love seeing people still doing the old process photography!

[@SamStinson]

Hi - nice portraits - I would suggest to Stan that he use more water / change the water out for the stop bath (red tray in the box) - the plates are coming out looking "greasy" and the water is streaking off - this is a sign that he has not sufficiently stopped development of the plate and washed all of the developer off. It does not appear to cause much harm to the image here as you are indoors and I assume not much UV light, but outdoors it can cause fogging or streaks on the plate due to continued development. It also causes the fixer to become exhausted much quicker due to the chemistry carrying over into the fixing bath.

[@onroadscameras]

Thanks for the comment Sam, I shall pass your message onto Stan.

[@nickfanzo]

Magical medium

[@evanspaulding672]

Lovely images here! Would love more videos from you going over your work

[@onroadscameras]

Thanks Evan, I can do that…I have a few videos ready, just waiting to develop the film.

[@johnli6736]

Hi any one can tell me what is name of the glass coated from black?

[@stanislavgdovin3247]

Usually people would use asphlatum to coat glass black, but in this video we used black (adonized) aluminium :)

[@johnli6736]

I can't fine collodion in my country. Whst solution can i substitute fo collidion? :((