So, my first encounter with the wet collodion process was when I visited Amsterdam four years ago in spring. You can check my previous post on this story. That impressed me so much and completely mesmerized me that it became the highlight of my visit. And Amsterdam is a hell of a city! I got a business card from the photographer I made a tintype at and as soon as I got back to Bucharest I googled the process and starting writing him back with questions. Soon enough I started joining different online groups and forums around the wet collodion process and started learning by myself. There’s almost no literature on this topic in Romanian but a lot in English which was not an issue for me.
Getting the info was the easiest part as there are lots of books and lots of great wet collodion photographers all over the world and most I talked to were happy to help me or answer my questions. However when it came to getting the materials, like camera, lens, plates, and so on was a bit of a challenge and still not the hardest part of it all. The most difficult was getting access to chemicals and solutions. Oh, boy! The collodion (premixed Poe Boy) I got from Belgium, plates (aluminum for now) from Czech Republic, lens from India, silver coins (will get back on this) from Germany, camera and chemicals from Romania (finally!) and the list goes on… Glass plates were another story as I wanted to cut my own glass to use for ambrotypes but I didn’t got to buy this from a local glass maker yet. One stormy day one of the windows at my apartment got broken by the wind and decided to recycle that glass. Lucky me!
Going back to the silver I was talking about before, I didn’t just cut the glass myself, I wanted to do more on my own and instead of buying silver nitrate crystals like a normal human being I bought pure silver coins and nitric acid to dissolve the silver. Dumb ass! I only did that once and the second time got some help from a local chemicals lab that had all the gear to safely do this. I switched to buying silver nitrate crystals and not making it myself after that. You can see below here the silver before acid and after, the final result. Don’t do this at home or by yourself as the fumes from silver dissolving in nitric acid are deadly! Boy, was I dumb, and lucky!
After a while (it was autumn by now) I finally got to the point where I had all materials and chemicals needed to make images with this process. I had the premixed collodion, my own silver nitrate solution, I mixed the developer, the fixer and the varnish. I am going to do a separate post on getting my first camera, believe me it’s worth waiting and reading about it.
I had everything now and was anxious to start already. So, let’s rumble in the jungle!
Ambrotipescu 