I was going for a very classic portrait in the vein of the paintings that were prevalent in the late 1500's/early to mid-1600's.  There was a beauty to them that I was drawn to for this project.  

Abigayle was the first in my series of Black Silk Nudes.  I thought it would make the fabric look like water if I did a time exposure while blowing the fabric with a fan.  I'm very happy with how it turned out.  Check out the video to see it in action...

Amanda came over to today to get the full wet plate experience.  She was a trooper with the crazy bright Profoto Bi-tube light and was very interested in the whole process.  I even showed her how to develop one of the plates.  It was a great day and we got 6 wonderful plates.  Each one tells a little different story.

Anthony came in and was giving me the feeling of the medieval court's artistan.  I could see him being a a debonair ladies man who was as talented in his art as he was with the ladies at court.   The fact that I'm watching Davinci's Demons right now may have had something to do with it. ;)

Back in the middle ages, there were women and men known as seers or mystics.  They were said to have powers to see into the future and divine what what your destiny would be.   

When I shot these images of Kate, that was revealed in the final plates.  The chemistry went off the rails a bit here, and then she just comes right out in the middle of the image with such an intense look...

This is the first in a larger series of portraits that I'm working on, shot using the tent camera, which has an effective bellows of 8'.

This is the first 20″x24″ plate out of the tent camera on location.  As you can see by the behind the scenes images, it's a pretty involved process, but well worth the effort.  My good friend, Rico helped out a lot this day, as shooting with the tent camera is generally not a one person operation.  We had a great time out in the sun and came away with some good work.

I've got a collection of these amazing masks.  This is the first in a series I'm working on that work the mask into the image...

My good friend Henry.  He's an amazing creative director and designer.  The solarization of this image makes me think of him working in his creative process.  

These portraits of Caleb evoke images of the gladiators of old.  There's a cold strength to them that I love.  When we talked about what I was looking for from him, I said I wanted him to project strength and a hardness of face.  He really delivered on that.!

These are a some of my favorite portraits.

I sometimes imagine my subjects as character from ages ago.  In these plates, Marc comes across as a young gangster in the 20's.  Maybe he was the newsboy, but he looked up to the mafia bosses and maybe wanted to be one of them...

Anna came into the studio wearing this gorgeous fur coat.  She looked like a character straight out of Game of Thrones(love that show). :)  

She has such strong and determined face.  It's almost like she was getting ready to make the hard decisions of a woman in power in some plates, and in the last plate, a softer side of the Queen....

I had a few friends over during the shoot and they were able to capture some of the behind the scenes of the day. 

I shot this lovely image of my wife at John Coffer's farm.  He had his Model T out, which seemed perfect for Maria.  It feels like one of the press images that the actresses would have taken in the 20's.  

This one really looks like a period photograph...but crazy enough, her smile is not.  Back in the late 1800's most people did not smile.  It was more proper to sit up straight and look into the camera stoically. 

Ok, this is one where you don't have to, "imagine" what he could be.  John absolutely has lived his life like a 19th century photographer.  He lives on a 50 acre farm that has no running water, no electricity, and teaches wet plate photography for a living.  On his farm is an outhouse, not a bathroom.  Most amazingly, John spent 8 years traveling around the country in a horse and wagon shooting tintypes and living off of his art.  

John is an amazing artist and the man that taught me this wonderful art of Wet Plate.  

This is the first in the series of Black silk nudes that was shot on 20"x24".  

Melanie is an absolute GEM!  She has such energy when she's working and was the perfect subject for the Black Silk Nudes series.  

One from my Mask Series.