I always have been fascinated by photography.
But with the introduction of the digital camera it all became too easy, too predictable …to me.
So I forced myself to go back to the roots of real analog photography.
Not just by making the photograph itself, but by controlling the entire photographic process.

This brought me back to the middle of the 19th century, to the amazing Collodion wet plate process.
And every single day I feel challenged to refine and improve myself.


For my website please visit : www.alextimmermans.com

Alex Timmermans
Holland


"You don't take a picture, it's given to you"

zondag 19 juni 2011

Maintaining your silver bath

Maintaining your silver bath is one of the most important things in the collodion process.
It will prevent your from fogged plates, comets, comets and other nasty things.

Sunning your silver bath is one of the easiest things to do.
Just pour it in a glass bottle and place it outside into the sun.
Leave the bottle open to allow evaporating the ether and alcohol which is left in the solution.
Just in case, put an old stocking on top of the bottle to prevent something getting into the bottle.
ALWAYS put the bottle in a safe place where nobody has access to it !!

After sunning you will notice that the silver solution has turned light grey.
Now every organic part in it has been exposed. This can be filtered out very easy using normal cotton cleaning pads.
Put these into the bottom of a funnel and filter the solution several times until the solution and the cotton pads are clear/white.

Just as easy as that....



 Left bottle after sunning for a few hours outside




Left cotton pad after first time filtering the silver bath
Second one after the fourth time.

4 opmerkingen:

  1. how do u bring it back to its original volume. do you just add distilled water? how about the silver. do you just mix it in and mix it till it brings it up to 9%

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  2. hello Ruby,

    yes, just by adding demi water. It mixes very easy and i bring it up to a gravity of about 1.07

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  3. Hoi Alex. Ik vraag me af, als je een UV lamp gebruikt, hoeveel nm en hoe lang moet je dan instellen?

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  4. Nickel,

    Ik leg de fles bij gebrek aanzonlicht gewoon evenonder de zonnebank.
    Meestal is een half uurtje meer dan voldoende.
    Ik leg dan enwwit vel onder de fleszodatje nog meer reflectie krijgt

    Alex

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