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Photography Culture

Wet Plate Collodion Photographer Tries to Photograph a Pup and its Human

Chris Gampat
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10/20/2014
1 Min read

Last Updated on 10/20/2014 by Chris Gampat

Video thumbnail for youtube video Wet Plate Collodion Photographer Tries to Photograph a Pup, Hilarity Ensues - The Phoblographer

If you know anything about wet plate collodion photography, it’s probably that the photographer needs their subject to be very, very still for the entire duration of the photo. For most subjects, that isn’t too much of a problem, but Wet Plate photographer Giles Clement had a bit of a more animated subject in front of his lens. Ashley Schafher came into Giles’ studio to have her portrait taken of her and her dog. To ensure that the dog didn’t get too frightened, Mr. Clement decided to use strobes but make as quick and painless of a process as possible. If Giles didn’t use strobes, this means that he would have needed to do a long exposure. The reason for this is because a wet plate has such a low ISO value and such a large area to get into focus that they need an extremely narrow F stop and a very long exposure time.

Through the entire shoot, Giles talks us through the process. It begins with using a piece of black glass and pouring collodion on it–which is a solution of cotton, alcohol ether and acid. Then he adds silver nitrate to make it all light sensitive.

Giles did things like making sure that they were on the same plane of focus to make the job easier for him. In the end, he nails it. The video and the insight into his work are after the jump.

dog giles clement portrait wet plate photographer
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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