Silver & Light, Wet Plate Photography by Ian Ruhter

This new video of Ian Ruhter's project with large scale wet plate photography was released a few weeks ago.
Although Ian grew up with the global transition from traditional to digital photography he has always stuck to his roots of his traditional work.
The video presents Ian's new project of wet plate silver photography, where he and his team have converted a large truck into a functional camera to produce wet plate images.
As Ian says, his project wasn't about making actual images or building the world's largest camera, but more about making sacrifices to hold on to the thing he loved the most. Wet Plate photography has given him the chance to use his hands, use raw materials to create his own film and one of a kind images.
The project was not just making everything largest but having to redesign everything of camera and film so it worked on a larger scale.
We see the difficulties Ian faced, it's not a case luck or of trial and error, but rather learning how to get produce and reproduce great images with the camera and wet plates.
I think what can be frustrating so much when it comes to non-digital photography, is making mistakes, because of course you want to get a great images, you don't expect to make mistakes and especially when you're so passionate about creating something and it does not work out right and it's even worse when you don't know why it didn't work(when there are many variables that come into play).
Ian's self realization that the only limitations are the ones he puts on himself continue drive him in producing these large scale wet plate images with his own funds and all his emotional investment.
What Ian has already done and will do with the camera is worth all the sacrifice and efforts he has put into this project.
Other photographers and groups do similar work as Ian's such as the 6 foot negatives for The Vanishing Cultures project by Dennis Manarchy and also Photobooth's tintype portraits we saw with Bex Finch's feature on American Hipster Presents.




Follow the project's twitter account here and more of Ian's work on his tumblr here.

6 foot Negatives for Vanishing Cultures

When I first skimmed NPR's first page on my phone about Dennis Manarchy making 6 foot negatives portraits I was beyond interested and impressed. To hear about a photographer using a camera that big to make that size film negatives sounds insane, especially considering the whole process of building the camera and developing that size negative. As digital becomes more widely used in print and online industries, it's a small amount of photographers that continue to use film and even few that push the limits and see what new things can be done. I remember last year when I came across the short video on Darren's Great Big Camera and was even blown away by that idea.  

Once I was able to go back to the NPR post and read more on why Manarchy was even doing anything with this scale of film I saw that this was more than just himself as a photographer, but a project to document historical Americans. For now, Manarchy is using a prototype 35 foot long camera, but is hoping to raise funds with his kickstarter page to build a polished product for the project Vanishing Cultures. Manarchy's project will take him around the states to photograph people and cultures of America's history.



With the help of his team, Manarchy is certainly taking up a great project that is socially significant in remembering these people and documenting their portraits like never before, as well as literally huge in the photography community, especially with the camera's 200th year anniversary coming up. I cannot wait to see more from this project and see how this will inspire other photographer with large format film and what other creative projects will come.