On the 23 rd of September www.exhibitastudios.ie held a very successful residential workshop on Wet Collodion Photography. Tutor Gwen Wilkinson ran the two day workshop attended by 7 participants. The dairy was converted into a 19C darkroom for processing the wet-plates.
Participants had the chance to use a 19C plate camera, to make and load their own plates and to develop them immediately after. As the plates had to be processed before they dried wet collodion was a very immediate type of photography. This immediacy must have had the wonder of Polaroid for the photographer.
In 1851, the Englishman Frederick Scott Archer discovered that collodion could be used as an alternative to egg white (albumen) on glass plates. This also reduced the exposure time when making the image. This became known as the ‘wet plate collodion’ or ‘wet collodion’ method. Collodion was also grainless and colorless, and allowed for one of the first high quality duplication processes, also known as negatives. This process also produced positives, the ambrotype and the tintype (also known as ‘ferrotype’).
After the success of the workshop Exhibit A is now planning an extended series of residential workshops for summer 2011. Please contact them for further details contact Exhibit A.
Annesbrook is available to arts groups and other special interest groups wanting to run immersive workshops. Please feel free to drop us a line to check availability.
View some of the photos from the workshop
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