The collodion process, and random fact about today.

First things first- did ya'll know it's National Popcorn day??? Go eat some popcorn pronto! you only have a few hours left.

This is Joni while shooting for her Surf Land collection

At the University right now we have a visiting photographer, Joni Sternbach. She's pretty much a 19th century photographic processes genius! She and her husband the past 2 days have been teaching a bunch of us photo nerds how to do the collodion process. Which, if you don't know anything about really won't sound that cool to you. But, trust me, it's WAY COOL! Ever since my first photo 1 class as a little itty bitty 15 year old sophomore I have thought the history of photography was pretty fun to learn about. But, It is even more awesome to actually be able to create a picture in a way i've only read about!


I'm not going to really tell you step by step how to do it, because it's not like anyone who reads this has access to all the chemicals you need and what not, but i'll tell you about some fun parts.

Beth pouring her collodion

pouring a plate- in other words, putting a chemical on the piece of glass or tin. but not really "putting it on" you pour a puddle of the collodion in the middle and slightly tilt the plate to cover the surface evenly. When Joni showed us how to do it, she made it look super easy


Not that it was super hard, she just made it look easy to not have the chemical drip off the plate in all directions. After one gets collodion on their hands, it doesn't like to come off. It kind of looked like dried on honey and smelt like 4x stronger than nail polish remover. {I think i finally got it off my hands after washing them 4 times or so.} I had to leave the room a few times because it got so strong!

The silver bath sensitizes the plate so it will react to the light exposure. you're supposed to wear gloves for this part because 1-silver isn't that good for you and 2- it stains your fingers the color dark brown and makes it look like you have poo all over your hands. I wore gloves for 2 of the 3 plates i did. the 3rd plate, there were no gloves left. and i am lucky enough to have brown stains on both my hands. Don't worry, Joni's husband said it'll only take a week for it to go away. So, if you see my hands, don't think i'm a dirty person, i promise they're clean..... they just look really gross.

then you literally run {well... more like speed walk so you don't look quite so dumb} to the location where you're taking the picture

Heidi developing in the helper tray.

after taking a picture {our exposures ranged from 2-6 seconds which after seeing Joni's reaction made me think they were usually longer than that} you speed walk {run definitely sounds better} to the darkroom and pull the plate out and develop it. {and pray that it hadn't dried yet... which, the edges of all of mine did a little bit}

developing it was the hardest part to me. I couldn't ever get the shot glass of developer to cover my
picture evenly so i ended up with oystering pretty bad on one. but i think it makes it look older. :D

developing takes only a few seconds. at this stage, it looks like a film negative. after pouring water on really quick to stop the developing it goes into the fixer. Where, miraculously it turns into a positive!

nicole fixing hers

while in the fixer it's crazy cool to watch it change from a negative to a positive. the image does this weird thing that makes it look like it's almost not even there and looks super weird {one girl said it looks like your soul is leaving your body haha} and then you rinse it, then you varnish it.

i liked varnishing it. It involved fire and lavender oil. So it smelt really good!


and then you get to admire how cool they look!

the fire for varnishing.

i didn't take pictures of them after the varnish because they apparently take 2 weeks to dry completely. and these pictures aren't very good of them because it's with a camera phone. but, you can get the idea.

my tintype. it looks so awesome! I really like it. most everyone did serious faces...
but i just look mad with a serious face.

everyone's tintypes.

so you can't see it very well, but this is my negative. 

one of the drying racks.

ambrotype on black glass.

the group picture. {i'm on the left middle row}

I really want to do these again one day!

p.s. It's the middle of January. {like you didn't know that...} But this is how it looks outside my apartment-

there is NO snow. it's gone. A week from tomorrow is my birthday! and I can't remember a time since I moved to utah when i was nearly 10, that there hasn't been snow on the ground on my birthday. WEIRD!

me and snow have a love hate relationship. I love it because it's pretty and you can have a lot of fun in it. But i don't like walking all around campus and life in it and freezing to death just walking a few feet outside to do laundry. Regardless, there is no snow and it's different.

Random countdown time-

7 days left of being a teenager
14 days Taylor comes to visit!!

and here's a random picture from the day before i left .

2 days till my friend, Heidi's, "Getting fat is fun" party.
1 Month till I'm going home for a 4 day weekend. {Feb 16-20. mark that on your calendars people!}
~82 days till I embark on my European photography summer study abroad!
2 months and 7 days till Ashleigh is due!


Well, I'm off to hear a lecture given by Joni herself! :)

XOXO
-Bri