Collodion Dry Plate

J 3 said:

Likewise today a lot of wet plate photographers don't bother too much about comets (little flakes of dried collodion that streak) and other defects because part of the charm is imperfect images in the era of digital perfection. Back then making perfect plates was a huge deal.

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On the other hand, embracing poor technique for sake of incorporating artifacts into your work is about as genuine as highly processed HDR photos. If its not enhancing your work in any way other than "dirtying up" the image, then including a lot of sloppy artifacts for their own sake isn't a meaningful practice. Too many people learn how to make sloppy, artifact-heavy work without ever learning how to make clean work and I think that's a shame. They will have to unlearn bad habits when/if they decide that dirty plates are a gimmick that no longer serves their purpose. Knowing how to make both clean and dirty plates is a skill set all wet plate photographers should have at their disposal.

I'm not suggesting that there is no place for wet plate photos that make use of process-driven artifacts, but what I do think is that a person can make great wet plate photographs that do not rely on artifacts to identify the work as uniquely "wet plate".

J 3 said:

I certainly will do so if I stumble across anything. The easiest way I can see to make it less finicky has consequences. Changing it from a solvent-physical developer to a standard physical developer would make things more predictable and less reliant on things like agitation.

The idea would be start with thinned out Dektol, but add silver nitrate rather than ammonium thiocyanate (though you might need some ATC anyhow).

This would:

1. Make the developer more expensive
2. Make the developer less safe (not by a huge amount). Silver nitrate stains, corrodes most metals, and will blind you if you get a drop in your eye. Dektol by itself is safer. Both are bad for your liver if you ingest some but SN is worse.
3. Cause the developer to change somewhat as SN is consumed. On old developer you might have to refresh the SN. You might have to extend development times.
4. I'm not sure if anything in Dektol interferes with Silver Nitrate. That would have to be checked.

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I have no interest in adding silver nitrate into my dektol or any other developer to be honest. I have had OK luck with the developing chemistry and practices with this finicky process. I have several recipes I can use if I need to, as well as another process that uses hydrogen peroxide and citric acid as a reversal developer. while for some adding expensive silver to their developing bath might be useful, for me it is just an added expense, seeing dektol ( or d72 or caffenol ) is not very expensive and sodium carbonate and thiocyanate are not very expensive either. besides, I am on a shoestring budget and I am only using silver for silver gelatin emulsion.

jnantz said:

I have several recipes I can use if I need to, as well as another process that uses hydrogen peroxide and citric acid as a reversal developer.

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I always wanted to try that formula. Seem to recall I heard it first on a Joe Van Cleave video but I might have that wrong.