Last month I spent a weekend doing “wet-plate collodion photography” course. As you may have noticed, I enjoy the challenge of shooting film, and I’ve tried successively larger formats (including 120 and 5x4). Larger formats mean fewer shots and require me to put much more thought into each image. So I wanted to take this process to its logical conclusion and try the oldest, most fiddly kind of photography there is. And that’s what wet-plate collodion is. It dates back to the 1840s, and it’s the basis of glass plate and tintype processes. Also, I am a huge fan of Julia Margaret Cameron, and this is the process she used. So that made me want to try it, too. Fortunately, there are people out there who will show you how to do it all, even if you’ve never been near a darkroom before. People like John Brewer, our tutor for the weekend, who holds regular workshops in Manchester and London. (Other people do the same in other parts of the world.) Our [...]