Archive for the 'nassplatte' Category
Wednesday, September 7th, 2022
Freilichtmuseum Salzburg Wet Plate Experience (rainy days)
Wet plate in the rain? Sure thats why its called wet plate 🙂 We had a great time in Salzburg and it was a pleasure to be there again. It’s great to do portraiture in these wonderful old houses. You have to visit this museum when you are nearby. It is totally worth it. The best time would be when I shoot portraits there 😉
Wednesday, July 27th, 2022
Darkroom Home Automations
Even I am an analog guy, I am not shy to bring new technologies to my darkroom. With the wet collodion process I always try to avoid touching anything unnecessarily. So I build some home automations to assist me with that. Every analog photographer knows the struggle. You work in your darkroom and in this very moment you don’t want to be disturbed. Just imagine, somebody opening the door and your film/paper/plate is exposed to light. For sure, you just can mount a red light on the entrance door and you are safe. But in my case (and I am pretty sure I am not the only one), I have a main entrance to the darkroom and two other doors. One door leads to my studio and the other door to my pouring room. That means if any of these doors are open, it is safe to enter the darkroom. If I just would have a red light on the main entrance door, it would be hard to understand for my workshop participants or sitters if it is safe to enter. Thats the reason I build a solution for that with Apple Homekit (you for sure can build it also with Google/Alex or anything else). But there is more. We all have running water in our Darkrooms. And I think some people will have a water detector. But what if you have to wash something with running water and are not in your darkroom all the time? I used Homekit for that as well. I show you also a solution for measuring time without touching anything. This may be very specific to the wet collodion process, but maybe it may be helpful for others as well. The last topic is about how I feel more safe with my 3D printer.
I looked also for Google/Alexa devices, but most of them are working with wifi instead of low power bluetooth or thread. So I am not sure if I want to recommend any of these, please let me know which ones work great and I post them here.
Works with Homekit: Eve Energy power switch
International https://amzn.to/3BfCqIH Germany: https://amzn.to/3cEAH5s
Eve Door sensor
International https://amzn.to/3J3MV3S Germany: https://amzn.to/3b4PiXu
Eve Waterguard
Inernational: https://amzn.to/3Pxnn1n Germany: https://amzn.to/3POEJHv
Eve smoke is not available right now, I found only this alternative from Netatmo
https://amzn.to/3Ou6T8Z
Works with Homekit and Google/Alexa
Philips Hue lightstrip
International: https://amzn.to/3J7jnlR Germany https://amzn.to/3cGmZzd
Philips Hue Bridge
International: https://amzn.to/3z6bYP9 Germany: https://amzn.to/3cxRdEl
Philips hue switch
International https://amzn.to/3b1NGxY Germany: https://amzn.to/3Ox1kGX
Apple Watch app https://apps.apple.com/de/app/click-metronome/id705075264
Water resistant JBL BT Speaker (new version
International: https://amzn.to/3Be74Cj Germany: https://amzn.to/3J4DKjA
Wednesday, May 18th, 2022
Inspired Series – Henrik Brahe and Gerhad Sokol
My inspired series is going on slowly, but for sure I captured wonderful people on metal plates. First you see Henrik Brahe. An archaeologist and photographer from Portugal. He brought me a wonderful book of his work. Find out more about him at http://henrikbrahe.com He visited with his beautiful wife Sanne. I could not resist to capture them together as well.
Gerhard Sokol is a well know photographer who captured history with his work. But after all these years in photography, he did not stop there, he went on to work with lots of different techniques. He also published a book recently that tis worth to buy. you can find his work and book on https://www.bilderges.at
More information about the Book (with beautiful prints and stories) and the Inspired Series: http://inspired.mhaustria.com
Thursday, May 12th, 2022
Growing Together – World Wet Plate Day 2022
I decided to participate this year for the world wet plate day. I discussed it with my girlfriend and she was the one who came up with the idea. First we thought to make it in one shot, but I couldn’t wrap the outcome into my mind because of the limited depth of field. So I came up with the double exposure solution. I was pretty happy with the outcome, but thought I could improve it a bit -> that was not my best idea (happy I did a scan before that). As you can see in the video, I got also unlucky with the varnish. So I am working right now on that to fix it. I will write about my result here on ma Patron page, you can support me and join here: Become a Patron!
Wednesday, May 4th, 2022
Building a Wet Plate Frankenstein Camera and Capture a Ghost
Corrine of www.corrinewestmedia.co.uk booked a wet plate workshop before the pandemic started. Two years later we were finally able to do it. The main subject was to get comfortable with the wet collodion process and to create images similar to the ones of spirit photographer William H. Mumler. Mr. Mumler created images (probably double exposures) where his clients could take a picture with their deceased relatives. The photograph of Mary Todd Lincoln with the “ghost” of her husband (Abraham Lincoln) was his most famous one. Corrine found my double exposure wet plates and that was the reason she contacted me in the first place. About two months before the workshop Corrine surprised me with a question: “Can we build a wet plate camera together?”. I talked with a friend and after a long visit at a DIY market I was sure that we can do it. A DIY Camera and capturing ghosts, that sounds like a fun workshop for me 🙂
I could not capture everything in the video, because I was focused to deliver a great workshop experience. So let me explain a bit here. I build a diy camera kit so to say. But I did not want to build everything. It was important for me that we put the major parts together in person, to really create a camera and an understanding how a camera works.
It took me a long time to figure everything out, I wanted to create a diy camera, that is adaptable and upgradeable without any special parts. It also should be able to shoot portraits and landscape and if something breaks, just go to your diy marked and get a replacement part. The only thing needed is my self designed camera back. I wanted to invent/adapt something that you can get in the market, but I was without luck finding such a part. The 3D printed design took many hours and a lot of filament to work as expected.
For the lens I went for a 150mm Leitz Dimaron (F2.8), Elmaron (F2.8) or Hektor (F2.5). These lenses have three things in common. 150mm is kind of a “normal” lens for the 4×5 large format and they all have the same diameter and not too expensive if you buy them online. All of them are pretty sharp as well as you could see in the video (this was a Dimaron)
The camera and lens support is build like this one in that posting: Camera and Lens support
For the Film/Plate holder I decided to go for the std international 4×5 holders. I had them water jet cut for a clean look and we modified it with silver wires, because these are more resistant against acid and fit into the silver nitrate workflow
We were super happy with our first result. The portrait looked awesome and the resolution of the lens is great. When you look closely at the video you will see, that we used two boxes for portrait distance.
https://blog.markus-hofstaetter.at/2019/12/ho-to-make-a-ground-glass-for-a-large-format-camera/
Here is a detail scan of Corrine’s eye – pretty impressive result of a 4×5 plate shot with a self made camera and a projection lens.
For the spirit photographs that are inspired by Mr. Mumler we wend for wet plate double exposures.
To make our live easier, we marked all positions with sticky tape on the ground.
We decided to use my Dallmeyer 3B Petzval lens for the first double exposure, because it fits better to the time when the original images were captured.
The second double exposure was a bit more modern, but also should get the ghost look. For that we used a Zeiss 300mm F4.5 Tessar lens. This lens is pretty new (about 2ß-30 years old) and is very crisp. I thought that makes more sense for this kind of image and also fits to the story (see caption of the image)
What a great 3 Day workshop that was. We created so many different portraits. (more in the gallery) and time flew so fast. At this point I want to say thanks again to Corrine for visiting my workshop and trusting me with the camera design. I looking forward to see what she will do for her PHD with the wet collodion process.
Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022
Wet Plate Portrait Workshop at the Silvergrain Classics Academy
My todays vlog is about the wet plate workshop in Germany. This time I take you with me behind the scenes. For upcoming wet plate / Nassplatten workshops (German and English) visit http://ws.mhaustria.com
Thursday, February 3rd, 2022
Inspired Series – Hans Gerlach – Christian Jungwirth – Wolfgang Mlakar
Finally the inspired series goes on. Check the project page and register for news about the book here: inspired.mhaustria.com .
I met Hans by accident when I bought a part for my tripod on Ebay. After some calls we decided to do a project together. Check the outcome of it here: https://blog.markus-hofstaetter.at/2021/09/a-170-year-old-process-and-high-end-food-photography/ When I worked with Hans Gerlach this project, his passion about cooking and setting up a scene on a plate inspired me. Every tiny little thing was placed carefully and at the end of every session I got to eat the most wonderful food you can imagine. In the first portrait he hold a pair of tweezers, a tool he used a lot during our work together.
Christian Jungwirth @atelierjungwieth
I met Christian the first time during a Menschenbilder exhibition. He invited us to visit his atelier in Graz. It was a great experience to get a private tour through all these famous artworks of well known photographers. He organises lots of other exhibitions, one of them was the amazing Steve McCurry in Graz. Backlit portraits in an enormous size. Steve McCurry inspired me a lot and standing in front of these huge portraits made my eyes wet. You can find more about this exhibition here: https://blog.markus-hofstaetter.at/2021/08/news-amazing-steve-mccurry-exhibition-and-a-waterhouse-stop-database/
Christian is also an internationally popular commercial and magazine photographer. His work is stunning. Lots of people here in Austria know his famous chocolate covered portrait of Mr. Zotter of Zotter Chocolate
Wolfgang Mlakar
This Storie starts a little bit different. I met Wolfgang during a wet plate portrait session in Graz. He came up to me ans asked if I could do a portrait of him in his lighthouse keeper outfit. Austria is not famous for lighthouses, so I was interested what is behind all of this. He die a lot in his life, he was a forma photographer, he has a Diploma in Education for people with special needs, he worked as a photographer for the army and much more. He then had a rough time and needed to step back. He still needs help with some tasks, but at some point he decided for himself, that this can not be everything and started to help people who are in the need of help. With that he brings light into their lives.
It was a busy shooting day, but I figured If I let him sit down by the window with his little lighthouse, it makes the most of sense.
Wednesday, September 22nd, 2021
a 170 year old process and high end food photography
everybody knows that I work exclusively on collodion wet plate portraits. So what’s the reason for food photography now? Let me try to explain. Many of you guys will remember that I bought a Cambo studio stand some while ago (https://blog.markus-hofstaetter.at/2021/02/my-new-150kg-studio-stand-that-is-from-1957-cambo-ast/ ). A little bit later I bought a used tray for it on Ebay. The seller was very friendly and somehow we started to talk about photography. Long story short, a month later we decided to do a project together. After months of planing, Hans Gerlach (a well known food photographer and columnist) drove over to my studio and brought his tools and some delicious food with him. Additional food for this shooting came from my garden, this way I could bring a bit more into the project besides my wet plate photography. During the planing period we discussed different dishes, their colours and how they would appear on a tintype (the wet collodion process only sees blue light and therefore red colours will turn black and blue white). We saw this come together as kind of a first test and wanted to see what what we could create. For me it was very interesting to have a chef working in my kitchen.
I suggested the 13x18cm format, because the camera is not too huge and can be easy mounted over head. We can get a bit more depth of field because of this smaller format. And I have a beautiful 250mm Zeiss Tessar lens that I can stop down to about F16 without having to long exposure times (two Hensel generators with 9000 w/s together helped to archive that and remember, its called wet plate, because the plate needs to be wet the whole time and can not dry). I mounted this beauty of a lens on my 13x18cm Mentor camera (check this article for my renovation of the beauty: https://blog.markus-hofstaetter.at/2021/08/shooting-wet-plate-portraits-with-an-affordable-large-format-bokeh-monster/ )
Even this studio Mentor camera and the tripod are meant for that kind of work, it felt funny to see my tools in that position.
While I prepared everything in my darkroom, Hans Gerlach did his magic in my kitchen. We were very excited to work on the first plate. And after we saw the result, we were even more excited, the outcome was gorgeous. So we worked very long on the first day (I think I went to bed at 4 am). But it was not all glory. We shot so many plates, that at some point my silver nitrate bath went bad. First I thought it was the collodion, the fixer and the developer, but after I changed all of that(I am always good prepared for important shootings and create everything twice or even three times) and still got funny looking plates, I know I need to change the silver nitrate bath.
After I changed the bath, everything was fine again and we could go on with the shooting.
We shot many different styles of the sourdough bread until we were happy with the outcome. This is one of our favourites plates. To hold it in our hands after months of planing and all the work we put together was wonderful. If you are interested in a print of this plate or any other, check out this link: prints.mhaustria.com
But this little setback should not be the only thing that kept me busy this day. After shooting many plates, my modified wet plate holder made my life a bit harder. Sometimes the plate won’t stay in place and the end result of that was a scratched plate….
I quickly solved the problem with a little redesign on the plate holder and from that on I was able to shoot without any problem. Before capturing every new dish, we were excited to see how it will turn out.
And most of them turned out great, I really like the beans and the spoon with chocolate mousse. The sheer amount of detail and texture of these scans from the wet plates are just incredible. They will look amazing on a big print.
To get as much done as possible, I scanned all 13x18cm (about 200mpix) and 18x24cm (about 300mpix, I decided later to do two bigger plates too) plates at night and also varnish them afterwards. So this night was quite short 🙂
I shot the bigger plates with a 150 year old Dallmeyer 2b Petzval lens to mix the this delicious bread with the beautiful swirly bokeh from this old lens. I really like how this plate turned out and how the out of focus areas look like.
After these intense shoots, we were always rewarded with great looking plates amazing tasting food.
Hans created also amazing tasting handmade pasta
To give you guys a much better idea of this shooting, I tried to captures as much footage as possible to bring you behind the scenes with this video
On thing is sure, we enjoyed our work together a lot and will do more like that in the future, but that needs again lots of planning. I am very happy that I met Hans and his work inspired me (yes there is also a inspired portrait coming up). I really look forward to our next shooting together (and yes, I also look forward to eat everything 🙂
Because I get asked very often about the tools I use for the wet plate process, I created a shopping list here: list.mhaustria.com
Wednesday, July 21st, 2021
How to create Waterhouse stops for antique lenses
Large format photographers who work with antique Petzval lenses know the hassle. You get a pretty new brass lens, but there are no Waterhouse stops included. “Hey I don’t care, I shoot anyways wide open all the time” some might say. With some, I also include me. But then you find yourself on a very sunny day and struggle with doing a very quick exposure, like here https://youtu.be/nStEK3zV5tA?t=438 (and you will end up anyways with an overexposed image, even with the not so light sensitive wet plate process). Oh yes, and there is also the creative point of stopping down your lens – but wait, who really does that if you can have a dreamy, swirly Petzval bokeh, right? 🙂 Just kidding, I would have needed these Waterhouse stop more often than I thought of. That’s why I finally 3D printed them (there is also another option) and did a tutorial for you guys, so you can make them too without having to much trouble. At the end I also decided to make carrying case for them, to have them in a safe place. If you don’t want to make them by yourself, check out http://gear.mhaustria.com – where I will make them for you (Dallmeyer 2B and 3b Waterhouse stops are available right now, but you can contact me here https://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/kontakt/ and we will figure something out for your lens).
Highend Waterhouse stops: https://camera-obscura.photography/ (you need to ask for it)
Thingverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/mhaustria/designs
Another Waterhouse stop Project on Thingverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4731495
Affinity Photo and Designer: https://affinity.serif.com/ Image
Vectorizer: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/image-vectorizer/id789656124?mt=12
Free online image Vectorizer: https://www.autotracer.org/
Morphi App: https://www.morphiapp.com/ Ideamaker: https://www.raise3d.com/ideamaker/
PETG Filament I used: https://www.extrudr.com
Get yourself a beautiful print here: http://prints.mhaustria.com
Get cool analog shirts here shirts.mhaustria.com
For online wet plate workshops, visit this http://online.mhaustria.com
For private wetplate workshops (Nassplattenworkshop contact me here: http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/kontakt/ (German and English available)
Thursday, July 15th, 2021
The First Analog Photography Festival After The Pandemic
This was such a great experience! It was not only great to meet people again at the Camera Obscura Festival, but it was also awesome to meet artists that are interested in an analog workflow. Another great thing is, that this festival is not an exclusive “wet plate event” it is also for people who work with the analog medium in any way. That was so cool, with this option you will experience things you may not have seen before. Like Large Format Cameras build from Legos. It was so nice to meet all of you guys finally in person another big thanks to Stefan, Christian and Denis for organising this great event! If you want to be notified for the next Camera Obscura Festival, register here: http://cof.mhaustria.com
Get yourself a beautiful print here: http://prints.mhaustria.com
Get cool analog shirts here shirts.mhaustria.com
For online wet plate workshops, visit this http://online.mhaustria.com
For private wetplate workshops contact me here: http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/kontakt/