Nikki

I've become friends with Alex LaMarsh.  In addition to being a delightful person, she is a professional hair stylist and make-up artist.  This past Sunday, she came over with her colleague-stylist, Heather Sansky.  We'd invited the lovely Nekole Kemelle over for a shoot.  I've shot with Nikki a couples of times previously, and she is a pro with the stunning good looks and work ethic to prove it.  Anyway, we had a very good day.  Here's just a couple of the large crop of good results....

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Rachel Abby

Because wet plate was invented in the early 1840s and came into the mainstream later that decade (overcome in large part in the 1870s by dry plate), it seems that in America at least the process will always be associated with the Civil War, as soldiers got tintype portraits of themselves and photographers made ambrotypes of some of the battle locations.  I'm not aware of any "pin-up" type plates that may have been made, but had they been made I'd like to think they may have looked something like this... 

Rock n Roll, aka Robert

I was sitting in my house, thumbing through old albums, when I came across a live Doors record that I bought used a while back for a buck.  I wasn't sure I'd ever played it before, so on it went  OMG, the "break on through" track was awesome!  WAY better than the sanitized radio version.  This was Jim Morrison yelling wacky weird shit in the mic.  Like jump outa the stuffy chair, pump the Krell, and hop around the room with the dogs looking at you funny, kind of awesome.   Wow.  It brought me back.  For some reason, it reminded me of sitting on the garage floor getting good-n-drunk with my buddy Robert, listening to a little piece-o-junk boom box, smoking camel lights, seriously rocking out, and ogling our motorbikes talking about where we'd take `em tomorrow.  So, here is a picture of Robert, in honor of that good memory.  While not a particularly "handsome" shot of the man (who looks a lot more like Daniel Craig, in his better moments) you'll note that he looks good-n-healthy here.  That's because he was smart enough to cut the booze and start endurance training.  So, he runs 100 milers, while I run 3 milers!  Oh well.  At least we still ride motorbikes together!  He's a good man, and one of my best mates....

Marina

Here is a close-up of Marina that I really like.  The eyes came out beautifully, as did the slightly down-turned head, with fall-off of focus.  Also, the overall gradation of dark-to-light, top-to-bottom, gives it a nice dramatic effect.  This is a full plate.  I'm finding that the full-plate dimension, 8.5 x 6.5 inches, is a nice size with which to work (trying not to dangle my prepositions, Mom!) and also to view in-person.  The slightly smaller 5x7, being a bit taller in dimensional size, is also nice.  Anyway...

Mylen

I've had the good fortune to have two photo sessions with Ms. Mylen, and you can likely appreciate why I'm much looking forward to the third. 

Yankee Pin-Up

A few weeks ago Amy and I headed out to Pt. Reyes to make some plates.  I found an old barn and we started pouring away.  I think the old barn gives a nice background.  And with the torn lace top, it just seemed right to put the Union hat on her!  We got a few good plates in ... before Johnny Law showed up and chased us off.  Oh well.  It was a beautiful day, finished with bbq'd oysters and cold beer at the coast.

Samiha

May 1st is World Wet Plate Day, in honor of Frederick Scott Archer who invented the wet plate process in 1848.  Why May 1st -- Archer died on May 1, 1857.  He was buried in an unmarked grave in his local cemetery in England.  Some fellow colllodionistas raised some money to buy him a tombstone, which they set just yesterday during a ceremony.  On this day, collodionistas around the world shoot in Archer's honor and post-up their plates here:

http://www.wetplateday.org/index.php

On this celebrated day I had the great opportunity to shoot with Samiha, who has such gorgeous features that I suspect a monkey could get some pretty good plates shooting with her.  In any event, the following is the one I liked best. 

I note that this plate shows very well the attributes of the curved-field petzval-design lens.  As you'll see, her eye is very sharp, but not much else in the picture is.  Indeed, toward the bottom of the image the background almost melts into her skin, nearing the periphery of the curved field where the spherical aberration is strong.  At f3, and a long-focal length lens (10 inches?), the depth of focus is very short indeed, probably not much more than an inch.  This was a 14 second exposure taken on the side of my house.  I used a small plastic pill jar to try and hold her head steady, and it appears to have worked.  Also, there was a slight breeze, so the gray cloth in the background was moving a small bit, as was her hair, all of which I think adds to the softness of the background, drawing the viewer's attention to the detail of the eye.  I love it!  Thanks for looking.