Having taken a summer-long hiatus from the new blog, I figure it is time to catch-up. After my return from the Spring trip to Iceland and the Faroe Islands, we drove out to the breeder and picked-up the newest member of the family, Curtis. He was such a beautiful little pup and has already grown into a very large pup. He’s such a sweetheart and is very much attached to our unit now. Curtis on the beach in Cross Village. A bigger Curtis on the beach a month later. This dog grew like a weed!
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It’s been nearly 4 years since we lost our big Shepherd, Baxter. He’s left a big hole that we haven’t wanted to try to fill until now. With my boy hitting 8 years-old, we figure it is time. After careful selection of breeders, we’ve gone with this little guy that was born on March 1st of this year. He’ll be ready to come home on May 3rd and we can’t wait.
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So, I’ve been having problems with the “measles” as I’ve heard them called. These blotchy areas that appear on the plates, but not in the film positive. You can see them in the image shown at the right. The problem is more evident in the smooth toned areas of the background. Having tested many times over, I eliminated the problem being water spots cased during the drying of the plate after development. I also redid the positives several times over thinking that it was somehow caused there, but found nothing. Then, upon inspection of the plate and film compressed in the vacuum frame of the plate burner and found there were many, tiny newton rings caused by the contact of the glass and film. These were the culprits. Now the problem was how to stop the rings. Figuring I was using too much pressure in the vacuum, I dialed back the frame which seemed to help a little, but I was still getting the “measles” although they were more feint. I then decided to try baby powder, but found it messy and still not a solution when it came to the rings. This brought me back to the clear Krylon spray […]
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Back into the wet plate images today and decided to work with a couple nudes I did last year. One… the first nude shoot done by me with wet plate up in the Leelanaw Peninsula back in the summer of 2010 and then a plate done at Photostock 2011 last summer. Although very pleased with what I am producing thus far, I am noticing some blotchy areas in the plates that don’t seem to be in the originals or the film positives used to burn the plates. I’ll be exploring this and doing some testing over the next few days and will report back when I have something.
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After several days without fresh plates to work from, my order finally came from Boxcar Press today. Following up on the success from the other day, I once again went from a wet plate original. So far for me, the wet plates are more satisfying, but that may simply be because there are more flaws in the process that cover-up my beginner’s inconstancies. Still, they are looking pretty good and keeping me satisfied on my progress. Pretty much sticking with the same exposures… 10 units screen and 17 units for the image. Learning that can be tweaked a little bit through slightly extended development as well as by cuts in the image exposure by .5 units. These both give me a slightly deeper etch and therefore slightly darker image.
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