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Both Ben and I had the pleasure of attending a two-day workshop recently to further our understanding of a historical/alternative process � The Wetplate Collodion process with photographer John Brewer at his Manchester Black Box Studio. We arrived at the studio for the 10am start and were met by John and his assistant for the weekend Mark (who was a fantastic assistant). John keeps the participants of the workshop to four with Jackie MacRae, a postgraduate student and Paul Burch, a keen photographer working in advertising, joining us.

For those unfamiliar the wetplate collodion process was developed in 1851 by Frederick Scott Archer and for the following thirty years became the primary source of photographic image making. Our day started with an introduction to the history of the process, camera equipment, chemicals and the relevant health and safety information for their use � all of which is included in the workshop manual provided entitled �Out of the Ether� authored by our host. John theatrically uncovered a variety of plate cameras one by one of differing sizes from under draped cloths and enthusiastically offered descriptions to a variety of vintage brass lenses. I have to say at the time I was very interested yet unmoved by the collection of cameras and lenses on display and found it difficult to understand John�s great enthusiasm, especially for the large brass Petzval lenses on the table in front of us. Over the two-day workshop my appreciation and understanding of John�s cameras and lenses would change.

The group were now ready to watch and learn as John guided us through the necessary procedures into making a picture. The studio offered a lot of daylight through a bank of windows and the light was good for the time of year. A portrait sitting was set up - sitter, head brace and camera positioned. The plate was now prepared with the glass cut to size to fit the holder followed by a thorough cleaning, pouring of the collodion in the darkroom, sensitizing the plate and finally placing the wet plate in the holder ready for exposure. The camera positioning and focusing was checked, the shutter (a black hat) placed in front of the lens, plate holder inserted into camera and an exposure was made. The exposed plate was then taken into the darkroom and developed with a �shot glass� of developer for approximately 15 seconds, stopped with running water and fixed. Outstanding. The process, reading it back sounds fairly straightforward but if anyone has viewed the videos of artists making plates online will know it is not as easy as it sounds. Nerves set in as it was now our turn.

We all prepared our plates carefully cutting the glass, cleaning, pouring the collodion, sensitizing and took our turns to make an exposure using the portrait set up. When developing and fixing your plate the closest analogy I can think of is the same feeling you may have had when making your first black and white print. John described my own visible joy more appropriately. � �You look like a five year old child on Christmas morning�.  The rest of the afternoon was spent practicing the technique and towards the end of the day John demonstrated how to turn our underexposed negatives into the positive ambrotypes by applying a sprayed black paint backing. To close the day John showed us the equally difficult process of protecting our work from scratches and oxidisation by pouring a varnish onto the hot glass ambrotype and informed us that we would be practising this necessary process the following day.

On our second day of the workshop we looked at the use of trophy aluminium (tintypes or ferrotypes) and black acrylic as an alternative substrate to make our positive images with the major appeal of not having to thoroughly clean the glass as both are supplied protected by plastic film. We also practised the somewhat frustrating �art� of varnishing our plates occasionally tainting a well exposed, well poured negative.

As the day and the workshop came to an end John allowed us to expose a plate on a piece of expensive ruby glass. As a one off these small plates looked almost jewel like and both Ben and I agree that Jackie made the image of the weekend � a portrait of John on ruby glass. It was a great way to end a thoroughly enjoyable two days.

Now to answer my original question - How do you share what you want to keep to yourself? And how do you keep it for yourself when its invention was over one hundred and sixty years ago! I have shared but also kept to myself a lot that I learned over the two-day workshop, not for selfish reasons as I may have originally intended but to encourage anyone who is interested in the process to investigate further. The most practical way to learn whenever possible would be to attend a dedicated workshop and I highly recommend John Brewer�s if you reside in the uk.

It has been a couple of weeks now since the workshop and I want to start practising the wet plate collidon process again as soon as I can. I have also found myself reading more into historical camera equipment as well as browsing auction websites for Pretzval and other antique lenses. The names of Dallmeyer, Darlot and Cooke are becoming familiar so it is not just the silver nitrate that has got under my skin.

Many thanks to Mark Roland for supplying images of the workshop for this post. 

*For my own curiosity I decided to keep two of my glass plates from the workshop as negatives -  declining to spray the back of the plates. The reasoning for this was for me to see how the glass plate negatives would print on a multigrade paper in the darkroom. The two examples below are printed onto Ilford Multigrade Art 300 and toned in weak thiocarbamide formula to add a little warmth.