Porcelain for The Jungle

I've been working a lot lately on getting everything together to start a new project here in Seattle.  When we moved out here I thought that we would be moving into a small apartment, and I'd need to find a studio to do this project in, so I left all of my large format equipment back in Philly figuring I wouldn't have the space or money for a while to do Wet Plates like I have been wanting to for years.

Then we found a a little house to rent with a big enough yard, light, and a garage for a dark room as soon as we got here, and I realized that when winter ended I'd have everything I need to switch over to wet plate for The Jungle, and portrait work.  So excitedly I started ordering chemicals, putting tanks and space together, but there have been a lot of set backs.

The company I ordered my silver nitrate, ether, and fixing agents from shipped them to my billing address (wrong state), and I had to coordinate returning a bunch of extremely dangerous chemicals, and getting them sent to us here in Washington.  Then I realized my tank was to big and the amount of silver nitrate I had would never cover a plate.

Every time I think I'm almost ready to shoot these damn things another delay, another expense, another shoot that I'm doing on digital instead of wet plate.

I'm a very patient person, but I've been dissapointed that I haven't gotten this going yet, still I am not one of those people that longs really for some glorified purity of film.  I love shooting digital.  I just want to play with the magic of wet plate too.  

Porcelain  and I were hoping that this would be one of my first days shooting plates, but we made the best of it.  I know my backyard is going to be a nearly perfect place to shoot.  The light is amazing.  The amount of room we have is pretty much perfect, and I'm hoping that any day now I'll have some videos and walk throughs for all of you on how I have successfully set this thing up.

Until then...the struggle is real.

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