Fellow students this time were Matthew Andrew and Elizabeth Gordon, both experienced photographers with impressive knowledge about alternative, and generally, photography.  We were all the same excited and curious though, ready to learn from John and create our first ever wetplate images.

I am not going into technical details, how it is made, which chemicals we have to be careful with, how is it exposure and aperture wise and all the 'geekery'.  That is taught by John during the course, written down and provided in a neat handbook too.

The things I remember are...:

- The old process really made me think about the objects I would want to take photos of.  Portraits always work well but our model should prepare for photos with a 'different than in real life look'.  I found that interesting how much this process ‘ages’ the face.  Somehow smiling ‘doesn’t suit’ these photos so the more miserable face our model puts on the better...  Well, not really but no smiling is better in this case.  Having tried the model role and I can tell not smiling and keep still with a miserable face is difficult!! So cherish a patient and well behaved model!

- Anything dark is good!  Dead things, old things, strange looking things all welcomed. I really loved the old dolls John had in the studio...so they were my pretty models for a plate.

- Regarding the lens I used, I remember John telling me that it wasn’t used for 100+ years….jawdropping!  He just purchased it a few weeks prior to our course on an antique photography market in Paris and I was the first lucky to use it.

- The studio and darkroom were constantly filled with the distinct smell of chemicals, fragrances I don’t usually smell on a normal day.  I loved it!

- We tried two options - glass and tin. I loved the glass plate more than the tin, even though I had to clean it for long before pouring collodion on it.  But then, with the tin, even no cleaning needed, we have to remember to remove the protective foil before the tricky collodion pour. Now, that's what I forgot and had finished a complete plate by the time John noticed this typical silliness of me.  Oh, well…I invented a ‘new technique’ – we said. 

- I remember frustration and swearing while varnishing. Varnishing is the final, crucial step of making a 'handsome' collodion wetplate and it is easy to ruin an until then good plate with it.  Good news, we can add another layer on top in order to improve a dodgy first one but that will surely double our frustration too.  At least the strong, lavender scented varnish will make everything blur after a while…

- The best feeling is when the image appears on the plate! Many times they really look out of this world, they look so different! This I can't explain but feel.

- One of my favourite image from the weekend is a selfportrait which shows the back of my head and neck with arm on my hair.  I couldn’t sit still during the long exposure (it was 1 minute as I recall) so the result is pretty weird.  And I love weird therefore I love that picture.   And that is me after all with that deformed looking arm and faded tattoo on my neck...so hello!

- There is only one copy of each photo.  No duplication.  Not possible.  It can be the same set up, same light, same exposure time, same model, same object, same day, same camera, same full moon, same half moon, the result never be the same.  That is beautiful!

John's collodion wetplate course was a fantastic experience for me and surely it is for any photographer either decided to continue with making wetplates or it is just for experiencing other than '20th - 21st century photography'.  As for me, I will try making small plates, using an altered brownie box camera in future. I am hoping I can use this tecnique for a project at some point during my soon coming school years. 

I didnt document these 2 days with many photos but a little collection is below; random iPhone shots of things I saw in between making wetplates.

My final images are in a set below. The first picture is of my shoes from when I was a baby with tiny feet.

Elizabeth's brilliant set of plates on Flickr.  I'm glad I was one of the models for the 'kissing in mask' scene....such a great image!