CREATE
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The Reverie — on view now at Art Walk #15
The Reverie
Wet plate collodion — Rick Magnell
One-of-a-kind photographs made on hand-poured glass and blackened aluminum, exposed and developed in the fifteen minutes before the plate dries. No negative, no file, no second copy.
A photographic process from 1851, practised in Williams Lake, British Columbia — portraits, still life and location work by Rick Magnell.
Current exhibition
Art Walk #15
The plates
One of one
Every plate in the show is the original — the piece of metal or glass that sat in the camera. What you see here are scans of them.
The process
A photograph
with a deadline
The plate has to be coated, exposed, developed and fixed while the collodion is still wet. From pour to fixer is about fifteen minutes, and the darkroom travels with the camera.
01
Pour
Salted collodion flows across the plate by hand and sets to a clear skin. Every edge, sweep and fingerprint stays in the finished picture.
02
Sensitize
Three minutes in a silver nitrate bath, in the dark. The plate comes out light-sensitive and stays that way only while damp.
03
Expose
Seconds in natural light — sitters hold still and breathe slowly, and the small movements that remain are part of the likeness. Under powerful studio strobes it is instant.
04
Develop
Developer runs over the plate and the image rises in front of you. Fixer clears it, varnish seals it, and it will outlast any hard drive.
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