My mate Colin came round on his Triumph the other week  and I managed to twist his arm into a portrait.

It all went really well and I made three plates that I really liked :-

I really loved the last one – the tight portrait, and I left the plates sitting in my darkroom to dry before varnishing them.

Now I really love varnishing plates – but it is one of the stages in the process where things can go horribly, and irreversibly, wrong. It is a very technique driven process – that I haven’t mastered yet 🙁

There are lots of different methods but I’m trying to do it as it would have been done in the 1800’s. This involves heating the back of the plate over a spirit lamp until it becomes just about too hot to hold. You then pour a lavender oil varnish into the middle of the plate, and flow it to the edges, lifting to drain it at the last corner.

The varnish is made from oil of lavender, gum sandarac and 190 proof alcohol. So it smells great but is highly flammable which can be a bit of a problem as after you have drained the plate you need to bring it back to the horizontal and re-heat it over the flame until the varnish just starts to smoke. This sets it and protects the collodion – for hundreds of years – OR if you get it wrong and set it on fire it destroys it on the spot, so no pressure then!!

I’ve actually been really happy with my varnishing up to this point. At first I was getting lots of ridges and streaks due to re-heating and setting too soon, but seem to be getting better. I’ve only set two on fire! 🙂

On this occasion I had left the plates sitting for a day or so before working up the courage to heat them for varnish and when I picked up my favourite plate of Colin it had an outbreak of loft dust. No problem I’ll give it a wee blow with canned air. This didn’t shift the dust so I took a soft carbon fibre cleaner, for vinyl records, and gave it a light brush. I was almost crying as I watched what I presume to be silver turning to dust and be removed from the image. Actually I removed the image!!

I carried on and varnished anyway – just for the practice, but under the gloss coating Colin has been lost forever. Sorry mate!!

I didn’t even make a high res scan before I ruined it – at least I can re-shoot it.