Don’t you love it when a plan starts to come together?

Several years ago I started to get a little frustrated with the van/darkroom set up. Running the van is crazily expensive, and leaving the camera set up on the street to disappear inside the van to make and process plates is not always a sensible option where I want to be making plates.

So, after much scratching of the baldy head I decided that size really doesn’t matter…….does it 😉

I started thinking about the smallest size of plate I might be able to make in order to make the whole set up more portable, more cost effective and user friendly.

This week I made my first “baby plates” using a converted 5×4 film camera – and I love them!! I managed to get an old petval lens off e-bay for under £100 and machined out the film backs to accept small plates that are 100x75mm in size. They are magic! 🙂

The next stage is to finish converting a touring bicycle I’ve built to tow the whole set up to a street corner near you! Watch this space, and in the meantime if you fancy popping into the studio in WASPS South Block in Glasgow for a baby plate and coffee you will leave slightly wired and with a beautiful tintype portrait in a black portfolio box for £25.

Here are the first few tests – thanks to wee Jamie, Guy and Mark from the Griphouse for popping in!