Dry Plate and Emulsion 101: (Most) Everything You Need to Know To Get Started*

*But were afraid to ask.

Denise Ross and Kirk Keyes would like to announce that we are hosting a weekend mini-workshop on photographic emulsion making, with a focus on making dry plates. This mini-workshop is free, and is being held on Saturday, August 9th in Portland, OR, and on Sunday, August 10th in Newport, OR. As space is limited, please email or PM if you are interested or would like more info.

The following subjects will be covered:

Saturday, August 9th, Portland, OR. 10AM to 4PM
Discussion of emulsion making procedures and practices
Show and tell - Denise's hand-made emulsion portfolio with examples of many paper substrates. emulsion colors, and glass plate negatives.
If anyone attending has worked with dry plate - at any stage - they are warmly invited to share their results.
Emulsion making techniques and tools - Demonstrations of techniques and tools used in making emulsions -emulsion preparation, washing emulsions, making glass plates, cutting plates, cleaning plates, papers for coating...
Lab gear - how to use some of the tools, like stir plates, temp controllers, digital thermometers, pH meters, digital scales, peristaltic pumps, gold coffee filters, syringes and adjustable pipettes and other volumetric devices.
Different ways to coat - puddle pushers, glass coating wells, doctor blades, and hand-held techniques...
Plate holders and view camera basics.
We'll have handouts with some formulas and information about making emulsions.

Sunday, August 10th, Newport, OR. Noon to 4PM
Sunday is the actual demonstration day where the tools and techniques discussed on Saturday are put to use.
There will be white light demos of emulsion making (as opposed to Saturday's verbal description, discussion, and darkroom walk through).
Hands-on practice with the different coating techniques.

We will have cookies and beverages on both days, but people should plan on brown-bagging it.

So in a sentence, Saturday has the focus of 'how do I get started?' while Sunday gives you the opportunity to get some hands-on experience so you can make emulsions yourself.

You can contact Denise at denise@dwrphotos.com or Kirk at kirk@keyesphoto.com with your reservation or questions.

*But were afraid to ask.

Denise Ross and Kirk Keyes would like to announce that we are hosting a weekend mini-workshop on photographic emulsion making, with a focus on making dry plates. This mini-workshop is free, and is being held on Saturday, August 9th in Portland, OR, and on Sunday, August 10th in Newport, OR. As space is limited, please email or PM if you are interested or would like more info.

The following subjects will be covered:

Saturday, August 9th, Portland, OR. 10AM to 4PM
Discussion of emulsion making procedures and practices
Show and tell - Denise's hand-made emulsion portfolio with examples of many paper substrates. emulsion colors, and glass plate negatives.
If anyone attending has worked with dry plate - at any stage - they are warmly invited to share their results.
Emulsion making techniques and tools - Demonstrations of techniques and tools used in making emulsions -emulsion preparation, washing emulsions, making glass plates, cutting plates, cleaning plates, papers for coating...
Lab gear - how to use some of the tools, like stir plates, temp controllers, digital thermometers, pH meters, digital scales, peristaltic pumps, gold coffee filters, syringes and adjustable pipettes and other volumetric devices.
Different ways to coat - puddle pushers, glass coating wells, doctor blades, and hand-held techniques...
Plate holders and view camera basics.
We'll have handouts with some formulas and information about making emulsions.

Sunday, August 10th, Newport, OR. Noon to 4PM
Sunday is the actual demonstration day where the tools and techniques discussed on Saturday are put to use.
There will be white light demos of emulsion making (as opposed to Saturday's verbal description, discussion, and darkroom walk through).
Hands-on practice with the different coating techniques.

We will have cookies and beverages on both days, but people should plan on brown-bagging it.

So in a sentence, Saturday has the focus of 'how do I get started?' while Sunday gives you the opportunity to get some hands-on experience so you can make emulsions yourself.

You can contact Denise at denise@dwrphotos.com or Kirk at kirk@keyesphoto.com with your reservation or questions.

I am pretty sure You got the location wrong. I am sure it should say Copenhagen, Denmark ;-)

Falkenberg said:

I am pretty sure You got the location wrong. I am sure it should say Copenhagen, Denmark ;-)

Click to expand...

oh that's just wrong, it's coming into winter here and i bet were still warmer than Denmark, so, the workshop should be in Oz

Dry Plate and Emulsion 101: (Most) Everything You Need to Know To Get Started*
*But were afraid to ask.

On tour - comming to a place near You

;-)

Coming soon to the midwest where the flat landscape makes it easier to flow a plate...

(And yes, Kansas is flatter than a pancake http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2003/jul/27/holy_hotcakes_study/ but not the flattest state)

Bump - one month to go.

PS - just got back from Kansas. I liked it!

Bump -

One month to go.

Kirk and Denise just finished the first of the two day workshop in Portland.
They are outstanding instructors.

Denise showed many images on hand made plates up to 5x7 with corresponding prints, some made on ilford and some made on her own coated paper. Tonal range was outstanding and detail was sharp. She gave some excellent ideas on coating setup, with demonstration. Denise is well along on her goal of making a fast and a slow emulsion that she can put onto plates and then print on her own paper (she showed samples on Fabricano Aristico and a Rives paper. I thought her Barayta coated Rives paper was better than any of the Ilford samples show for detail and blacks).

Kirk showed an amazing collection of equipment he is assembling off ebay for achieving his goal of a high speed emulsion. He showed a peristatlic pump (he'll use for injecting Silver nitrate at the same time as bromide into the gelatin at a controlled rate to create the needed T-grains) as well as a load of other electronic gadgets ranging from pH meters to LED darkroom safelights (Numilux brand 1W). Kirk demonstrated one of the methods of washing emulsion by lowering the pH to clump the emulsion (then dump the clear water containing contaminents) followed by raising the pH to put the clumps back into solution (liquid emulsion) state. Since he's a chemist in his professional career, he knows a lot (including tales where P.E. called him up to apologize for being wrong).

Frankly, the different styles are refreshing - Denise tries to simplify and is the artist. Kirk pushes the high tech extreme (can't compare images because all he showed was a step tablet so far) and knows the chemistry. There is a great deal of passion in the topic and quite a diversity of approach, but in every case they are sharing what they've found so that others can use this basis of knowledge for other experiments.

Today's workshop also included an excellent demonstration by Winkler on how to clean glass. This is covered on the website that Denise runs.

Tomorrow? Looks like a full slate of demonstrations of how to make, and coat emulsions onto the plate as well as how to carve up glass to make plates (not as easy as just scribe and break).

If you missed this workshop, keep an eye out for workshops by Denise/Kirk on plate making. You won't regret it.

I'm proud of my students! They deserve a lot of Kudos.

PE

Don -

Thanks for the review. It was really encouraging for the future of home emulsion makers - both in the numbers of people that attended (more than 10 each day) and in the enthusiasm shown in learning about this new "alternative" process.

I'm glad you enjoyed our different approaches towards this subject. I think we are the Oscar Madison and Felix Unger of emulsion making. I'll leave it to those that know us to decide who is who...

It was great to see Bill Winkler's glass cleaning demo - the water sheeted up and ran right off the plate when he was done.

And I need to make a correction from your post, Don - it wasn't PE that called me about a long, contentious thread many years ago, it was Bill Troop, and we are in good standing order to this day. I really appreciated him calling me personally and we had a very nice talk together.

And Ron - you certainly have gotten the ball going for both Denise and myself. Thanks!

So for those of you that were interested but didn't inquire or couldn't make it, Denise and I are planning on having another one next year. Mark you calenders for the end of next summer to come to Oregon and learn and talk about dry plates and emulsion making. And remember to bring some of your work and ideas to share.

It may be wet in Oregon, but our plates are dry ;^)

Thanks, Kirk, for the correction. No need for a myth to get started ;-).

Thanks! Don. The whole weekend was a wonderful experience. I hope everyone learned as much as I did. It was a great group of people. The breadth of photographic knowledge and experience was marvelous. It really was cooperative learning at its best. I've tried to write down everyone's ideas and suggestions and I'll get them posted on The Light Farm as soon as possible.

I'm already looking forward to next year's get-together and seeing where everyone has taken dry plates. A big 'Thank you!' to everyone who participated, and special kudos to Kirk and his magical emulsion-making machines.

Denise