
I Built the Largest Natural Light Wet Plate Studio in the US in Over a Century - wallflower
https://petapixel.com/2018/01/11/built-first-natural-light-wet-plate-studio-us-century/
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petesalty
Honestly, this seems a tad self-aggrandizing. I've done wet plate before, you
can learn it in an afternoon, it's really not that hard. If you can't find
someone to teach you there are books like The Keepers of Light that have the
formulations and processes all laid out, so learning by yourself isn't that
hard either. The tricky part is getting hold of some of the chemistry, but
that's not as hard as it used to be either. The issue with wet plate processes
is that it's kind of finicky and there's a lot of experimentation that has to
happen before you get it down, but getting from 0 to your first one shouldn't
take 45 days if you really want to do it. Not hard, it just takes time, and
money.

As for there only being 1000 people who practice this, well, that's just not
true. I personally know at least 3 photographers in the SF Bay Area who do it,
and I know of at least another 6 in the same area (just don't know them
personally). It's actually become a quite popular thing to do.

Good for him building a studio and all, and for doing something he really
enjoys, but some of these claims are just not right.

~~~
gt_
‘Self-aggrandizing’ could describe numerous accomplishments contemporary wet
plate photographers have made, and documented on the internet. Maybe the
particular practice just seems to attract a certain crowd. Preserving the
process and such is interesting and educational, but how much? Aside from
technical and practical considerations, I’ve never really understood the
intrigue, and I shoot photos on emulsion on a regular basis in 2018. I have
reasons and vulnerability about that, though, which would crumble if I were
trying to justify these wet-plate feats.

~~~
petesalty
Honestly, if you're doing it in an 1800sqft studio custom built for exactly
that process, it's not that hard. I spent a weekend doing it in what was
essentially a 50sqft bathroom and it was pretty straight forward, once you get
the hang of it. They used to do it in tents in the middle of the desert on
giant, heavy plates of glass (16in X 20 in), so this is a piece of cake in
comparison.

There are photographic artists doing much more complex work, in much more
difficult conditions. Check out the work of Chris McCaw and John Chiara, or
the recent daguerreotype work of Binh Danh. Not criticizing anyone, just
saying that the way they choose to do things is absolutely crucial to their
art, and an essential part of it, not just a process that is currently cool.

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mabbo
There's an interesting idea in this article around how with the increase in
convenience that technology brings, we don't realize that something else gets
lost. If you can only take one photo and know that it will be hours of work to
even find out if it was any good, you're going to invest a lot of time trying
to make sure that photo is perfect. You're going to pour your skill and
passion into that one photo. Would you do the same when you're taking 200
shots?

Last night my phone's charge cable stopped working and my phone battery was
dead. I had to get to a mall 20 minutes drive away without GPS in a city I've
never been to before. I realized that in the last decade, I've never once had
to navigate, ever. I've used the GPS as a technology crutch for so long that
my skill has atrophied, maybe. I made it, thankfully, but I haven't been
nervous like that when diving in a long time.

The whole experience has left me wondering just what else I don't know I might
have lost because of all the technology around me.

~~~
jaclaz
>Last night my phone's charge cable stopped working and my phone battery was
dead. I had to get to a mall 20 minutes drive away without GPS in a city I've
never been to before.

If you are staying at a hotel, ask at the reception, most hotels do provide
nowadays charging cables/adpters as a service.

In some cases you might even be given one (used of course) for free, it seems
like nowadays charging cables/adapters are the most forgotten items (very
rarely asked for) by travelers, and they end up in the "unclaimed items"
cupboard.

~~~
foobarian
Hotels also used to provide free paper maps of the local area :-)

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rndmio
For a "Natural Light" studio I'm seeing a lot of lamps there...

That aside I needed to keep reminding myself as I read the article that this
is about photography as art, aping the style of old photographs. But those old
photos don't necessarily look the way they do because the photographers of
that time were after a certain aesthetic, they were simply the best
photographs it was possible to make at that time.

~~~
encrystation
Their aesthetic was shaped by the tools they had

~~~
tjr
A lot of effort and resources go into reproducing the sound of music
recordings from, say, the 1960s -- even though the music producers in the
1960s would probably have loved to have had today's technology instead!

~~~
rndmio
That was what I was trying to get across. This yearning and fetishization of
"simpler" times and ways of doing things, as though there is something
inherently noble and valuable about these practices, purely because they are
historical.

~~~
platz
And yet there won't quite ever be a Beatles or an Elvis again, will there?

It can be very hard to beat the zietgiest of an age at their own game. There
is something special in that, which we try to measure up to, but still can't
quite reproduce exactly even with better technology.

Will there ever be a eugene atget or a walker Evans or a Dorothea Lange that
beat them at their own game?

~~~
igouy
Until you provide some criteria that would allow us to evaluate "beat them at
their own game" for a particular body of photographs …

Eugene Atget or Walker Evans or Dorothea Lange were doing their thing in their
now -- so beating them at their own game would be doing your thing in your
now.

~~~
platz
great, we're all in agreement.

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oftenwrong
"By being slower and having to follow a very strict set of rules to make an
image, you find a way to work around the limitations of the process and the
process pays you back, tenfold."

This effect comes up all the time when I'm learning about great projects or
people in history - creativity that arises in the face of limitation.

For example, the rock climber Pamela Shanti Pack developed a condition that
made it painful for her to grip, which eventually pushed her toward crack
climbing, and offwidth climbing in particular. She has since made a name for
herself with first ascents of some of the hardest offwidths ever climbed.

I don't often see limitations self-imposed like this, though.

~~~
beat
On the contrary, I see artists choosing self-imposed limitations constantly. I
do it myself, in whatever form I'm working in. As an example, a band I'm in
sometimes plays "White Christmas", one of my favorite melodies. When I play
the guitar solo, I have a simple rule for myself - I have to play the melody.
_Everything else can change_. So instead of improvising melody, I'm
improvising tone and expression. It gets great results. Other times, I might
set a little rule for myself like "I have to play this solo using only these
four notes".

Narrowing the range of choices through self-imposed limitations makes creative
decision-making easier and more focused.

I get it as a photographer, too. Sometimes, I'll restrict myself to a single
lens. Or I'll deliberately shoot film rather than digital, and limit myself to
one or two rolls. It forces me to be more considered in my approach. I totally
understand the wet plate thing.

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Animats
Aw, he didn't put his studio on a turntable to follow the sun, like Edison
did.[1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison%27s_Black_Maria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison%27s_Black_Maria)

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wst_
Somewhat related. I was surprise to find that building in Tokyo Open Air
Museum.
[http://digitalmuseum.rekibun.or.jp/app/structure/detail?id=s...](http://digitalmuseum.rekibun.or.jp/app/structure/detail?id=str00063&b1=1000002&start=20&lang=en)

> Since lighting equipment for photography was not fully developed in those
> days, frosted glass was used for the second-floor windows on the north side
> of the studio for lighting purposes.

I've been there in the rainy day and even then I'd say light was quite OK. I
don't know a lot about photography but it was very interesting to see how
people solved these problems back in the day.

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hvs

      5 years ago, I didn’t own a camera and knew nothing about
      photography. I saw a wet plate online and I was immediately 
      drawn to it, and thus my journey began.
    
      I was told early on that there was no way a non-photographer
      who has never owned a camera can figure out this archaic
      process from 1848. 45 days after that conversation, I had
      made my very first wet plate photo.
    

He may have been an amateur, but he appears to have had a significant number
of resources at his disposal to get started. I can't help but feel like he
left out a huge part of the story.

Also quoting _yourself_ on the door to your studio?

~~~
oftenwrong
>Also quoting _yourself_ on the door to your studio?

I took that to mean he expects the studio to outlast him. The plaque serves as
a way to communicate his intentions for the studio to those that will inherit
it.

~~~
mstade
That's how I read it too. Maybe a bit presumptuous to add such a plaque right
away and not, say, as a clause in a will or something – the building might be
gone in five years, after all. But I didn't really read it as self
aggrandizing.

~~~
settsu
In context with the content and tone of the post, it reads as self-
aggrandizement—a seemingly not uncommon affectation among those who have
attained notoriety in their own lifetime.

And while one might regard it as distasteful—it’s certainly tiresome, in my
experience— there’s material and psychological benefits to holding that
mindset (along with a variety of non-trivial downsides.)

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bluetwo
I was at an exhibit of natural light wet plate work recently and got to chat
with the artist. Really interesting stuff.

So many parts of the process are inexact and difficult to measure that you
never really know what is going to happen on the other end. For him it was a
challenge to try to reach perfection while appreciating the imperfections that
arise along the way. Uneven light, slipped emulsion, bubbles, all added to the
final piece.

It seemed you really had to dedicate yourself to this one art form if you were
going to produce anything worthwhile. Not for the recreational photographer.

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Areading314
Pretty creative

Shame about the photos though

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amgin3
Alternative headline: "rich guy builds a house for his hipster hobby"

~~~
unobtaniumstool
But in only five years, he was able to go from knowing nothing about
photography, to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on it!

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1024core
If you want lots of natural light, why the heck would you live in North
Dakota? Why not Arizona or New Mexico??

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codemogul
OT: Dude looks like Eugene Victor Tooms! Compare
[https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2018/01/8-23-17_2-800x6...](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2018/01/8-23-17_2-800x600.jpg)
vs
[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/x-files/images/0/0b/Euge...](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/x-files/images/0/0b/Eugene_Victor_Tooms.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20080221052611)

~~~
Gabriel_Martin
Not seeing it at all.

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nottorp
Am I the only one that was led to believe by the title that it took him a
century to build the studio?

~~~
oftenwrong
I think that would be an odd way to read it. It's an idiom, I guess.

"It is the most significant archaeological find in 50 years" = It is the most
significant archaeological find among archaeological finds of the last 50
years

~~~
nottorp
Your example is clear, this title ... less so if you read in a hurry. And yes,
I did read TFA and I know it only took him 5 years :)

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travisl12
Step 1: Build wet plate studio

Step 2: Take pictures that are creepy af.

Step 3: Profit.

