expecting

My sister-in-law is expecting her first baby this week! This is a dry plate taken this past weekend.

I had several things working against me. First, I coated the plates back in April, exposed and developed a few, and then put everything aside. I was hoping they were still usable. The developer got nasty (dirty) toward the end, but everything seems to have worked. Also, I had no intention of cutting the plate down to fit a standard 4x5 holder. It would warp the edges and probably be a tight fit anyway. So I taped the plate to the front of a holder and adjusted the focus by 3/16" (the difference between the plate and focus plane). Of course, this entailed leaving my subject in this position while I ran to the basement to load the camera after focusing. She was a good sport, but I need a better way...