how it works in the red room

How it works

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The wet plate process requires a piece of metal or glass to be coated , sensitized, exposed, and developed –– all in about fifteen minutes or less.

First, polish and dust your plate. In the red room, we use sheets of trophy aluminum that have been cut to size and painted black on the emulsion side.

Pour a small amount of collodion onto the plate and coat evenly by flowing it across the entire surface, working from corner to corner, careful not to allow any to pour over the sides. When the plate is completely covered, pour off excess into a separate container and allow 10 to 20 seconds for the collodion to form a skin.

Slide the plate into the silver bath in one smooth motion (to avoid bubbles) and let sit for 3 minutes to create the light-sensitive emulsion.

Remove the plate when ready and allow excess silver to drain onto a rag or paper towel. Dry the back and edges of the plate before loading into the film holder to be exposed.

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Double check your framing, focus, f-stop, light and exposure before exposing the plate.

Note: this wet emulsion has a film-speed equivalent of about 5 ISO. For the uninitiated, this means you'll need a lot of light or a long exposure.

Back in the darkroom after the plate has been exposed, pour a small amount of developer across the plate, making sure the entire plate is covered in one motion. After several seconds, a negative image will begin to appear.

If shooting a human face, watch carefully for the contrast of the pupil against the white of the eye.

As soon as you see this contrast appear strongly, pour water rapidly and uniformly across the plate to stop the developing process.

Slide the plate into the fixer and watch the negative image turn slowly into a positive.

Once fixed for several minutes, each plate is washed, air-dried, and varnished for protection.

The end product is a hand-crafted image that will inevitably contain aberrations, artifacts and imperfections created by any number of variations in the process –– just one of the reasons why we love this medium!