Glass Neg Portrait

A recent portrait from a series I’ve been working on since mid 2009. This is a DSLR photo of a B&W contact print made from a 6.5x9cm glass negative. This is not wet plate, these are dry plates that were made by Agfa to be used in electron microscopes. The plates expired in 1985 which might explain the odd surface effects. I bought ten boxes from a guy in Hungary in 2008 so I don’t know how they were stored before then. The camera used was a 1920s era Voigtlander Avus that came with correct size plate holders. I treat the plates as being ISO 1.5 and this exposure was two seconds wide open (about f/4.5). I process in a Nebro cut plate tank with Rodinal 1+50 for twenty minutes. I add about 15ml of 1% benzotriazole to reduce fog – this makes a big difference.