I’ve now had the chance to properly test the UV lights for making portraits indoors. I absolutely love the results and the feeling that I can work indoors with wet plate over the winter is disturbingly satisfying 🙂

I’ve so far set up in three places to make portraits – and have not cooked or even par boiled any of my subjects under the UV lights. Result!!

My first victim was my step dad Ian – and I need to say a big thanks to Alan at Calumet in Glasgow for letting me set up in their back warehouse area. It was ideal – I could reverse the van right up to the roller shutter door and work away without any distractions. AND without constantly looking up at the sky to judge when the sun was going to disappear – or re-appear. Actually working outdoors it’s the wind which has caused me the most difficulty. It might be fair enough to ask someone to sit still for 10-15 seconds but if the wind is moving the camera it’s pointless.

I used one big softbox with 8 UV lamps as my main light source and the smaller with 6 lamps as a fill.

With this set up my exposure times were still pretty long – between 15 & 20 seconds depending on the bellows draw but I’m sure I’ll be able to bring them down by extending the development time a bit. I’m also still looking for a faster lens but they keep going for crazy money on ebay.

Here are some of the results: –

There’s movement in the first one which I don’t really like – and I scratched the second removing it from the drying rack, so despite loving the lights I’m not very happy with the end results.

Now, in response to the post “losing Colin” I’ve had a few messages about varnishing. I set about trying to make a short video of me varnishing these plates to answer the queries – BUT it’s clear that I’m not quite at the talking whilst I varnish stage yet : – ) I set up the video camera and got to work and before I realised it I had finished varnishing about eight plates and when standing back to admire my handy work, whilst scratching my backside, remembered about the camera. I’ll try and do a voice over and cut out the scratching scene next week.

Since making these plates I’ve had another day’s experimenting with the lights at the ARGO boxing club. It went really well with good results experimenting with shorter exposures and longer development times. Once they’re dry I’ll scan them and post them up.

Cheers

David