I always have been fascinated by photography.
But with the introduction of the digital camera it all became too easy, too predictable …to me.
So I forced myself to go back to the roots of real analog photography.
Not just by making the photograph itself, but by controlling the entire photographic process.

This brought me back to the middle of the 19th century, to the amazing Collodion wet plate process.
And every single day I feel challenged to refine and improve myself.


For my website please visit : www.alextimmermans.com

Alex Timmermans
Holland


"You don't take a picture, it's given to you"

zondag 30 december 2012

Demonstration of the wet plate process

 
Giving a life demonstration about the wet plate process is alway so much fun.
Sharing my passion for collodion photography gives me so much energy!
 
Yesterday i was invited by Fotoclub Lucifer to show this beautiful process to a large audience.
Some good questions were asked and we had a nice discussion at the end with a smaller group.
 
Special thanks to my friends, Henk Peters ( video) and Ben van Os (Photos).
Henk used his camera so everything could be followed on a large projection screen.
Including the work i did inside the darkroom.
So the audience was able to follow the whole process life
 
Unfortunately i had very limited time to set up the whole thing so i wasn't able to make a testplate.
Next time i really need some more time for this. 30 minutes is way to short for this. 
Beside of some minor flaws the plate came out good.
It's always tricky to estimate the exposure time at a place where you have
never made a wet plate before. But all went just perfect.
Thanks for the sitters because the were VERY patience!

A brief impression:
Photo´s made by Anne-Marie van Alem-Damen, Peter van den Hamer en Ben van Os
Many thanks for sharing your photo's.



 






 
 
 
 









 

dinsdag 25 december 2012

Making an insert for your plate holder

The good thing about wet plate photography is that you are able to choose your own plate size.
The only thing you need is a suitable insert for your plate holder.
Contamination is problem number one with wet plate photography.
Contamination starts when the silver nitrate on the plate gets in contact with dirt in your plate holder.
Most of the time that contamination shows up at the top of the image
as the glass is upside down in your holder
That's why a good plateholder has as less contact with the inlay as possible.

Here I show you how to make a good working insert.
This time I have used Dibond, which is a laminated material.
A plastice core covered with 2 very thin layers of alluminium.
The good thing of this material is that is is very stiff and light weight.
The down side is that it has alluminium on it which reacts with the silver nitrate.
But a good matte black paint will eliminate that problem.


UPDATE


I did one extra thing with the plate holder.
The thin silver wires wiggled a bit so i glued the ends and this works much better.
The fitting of the silver wires is much more solid now.
Sprayed the whole inlay matte black and it's ready for use now.






This is a picture i got from Sean Mckenna a few years ago.
It shows an original wet plate holder with inserts.

 
 
 
First i use a circular saw to cut the plate to the right dimensions.

 
 
 
As you are unable to reach the corners with a circular saw,
 I use a saw blade to cut the last pieces.

 
 
 
After that I have used a Dremel to make curves in the corners.

 
 

 
 
Now I use the circular saw again to make the inside of the holder just a few mm wider.

 
 
 
Again use the dremel to take out the last parts.
 
 

 
Drill a few tiny holes needed to insert the silver wire.

 
 
 
Make sure you bend the silver wire exactly a the good size before putting in into the small holes, otherwise it is going to be difficult to make it all tight enough.

 
 
 
 
 
The only thing I have to do now is spraying it with a matte black paint and the holder is ready for use.
Making this insert took me about half an hour.
Ofcourse you can do this also with some hand tools

maandag 10 december 2012

The making of "Hat"hunter

This is a movie made by the filmcrew of the "Eindhovens dagblad", which is a local newsaper.
It gives a nice impression how "Hat"hunter was made.

maandag 3 december 2012

Update on "Hat"hunter


About 2 months ago i was contacted by a journalist of the regional newspaper Eindhovens dagblad, Tonny Peeters.
He got my business card from a couple who watched us
making "hat"lines
a few weeks before.
He asked me if it was possible to see this process life.
At that time we were working on the idea of "Hat"hunter and we made
an appointment on a Monday morning in the forest of the Heeze castle.
 
While unpacking my car and setting up my new ice fishing tent the photographer
of the newspaper came by and made some nice pictures.
The journalist also arranged a film crew (which was a total surprise for me...).
 
He promised me to write a nice article and it would be published within a few weeks.
Well, it took a little longer, but this morning the article was published including the link to the movie they made.
At 07:00 this morning i grabbed the newspaper out of my post box to
see how it looked like.
You can imagine i am extremely happy with this article and film.
So Tonny Peeters ( journalist), Jurriaan Balke (photographer), Filmcrew of ED and Ferry van der Vliet,
many thanks for making this possible !!!
 

The link to the movie : http://www.ed.nl/regio/veldhoven/11933455/Oerlenaar-is-gek-van-collodiumfotografie.ece