Have a look at these two old and very beautiful glass plate images.

[Keith]

A friend of mine's wife discovered these in a box of stuff she inherited recently. Rosemary's in her sixties and she thinks that these are of her family back in Sweden (she was born in OZ) ... the lone portrait of the young woman is her grandmother or great grandmother she assumes ... but she's not totally sure.

When I held these glass plates in my hands I was astounded at how beautful the images are considering their age and deterioration. They have this glow that I've never seen before ... quite unique!

 

[dazedgonebye]

There are a few wet plate guys over at the largeformatforum.
You can always take up another format. 🙂

 

[sanmich]

beautiful indeed.
Tones, sharpness etc..
Something rarely found in other than really old stuff.
I was just discussing today with a friend how I can't get tired of this portrait:
http://www.elangelcaido.org/fotografos/nadar/040nadar05g.jpg
despite my lack of sensibility to portraits in general

 

[bmattock]

My family is from Wales.

Glass plate negatives can be found on eBay sometimes. They scan really well, they tend to hold up pretty well too, as long as the glass doesn't break. And the 'look' is more down to the lenses, but I like the look in any case, and agree with you about that 'pop' they seem to have.

 

[Al Kaplan]

It's not just those old uncoated lenses. The orthochromatic (sensitive only to blue and green light) and blue sensitive emulsions of yore also have a lot to do with the look.

 

[ChrisN]

beautiful indeed.
Tones, sharpness etc..
Something rarely found in other than really old stuff.
I was just discussing today with a friend how I can't get tired of this portrait:
http://www.elangelcaido.org/fotografos/nadar/040nadar05g.jpg
despite my lack of sensibility to portraits in general

Ah, the Sarah Bernhardt portrait by Nadar.

 

[VinceC]

And, too, just the huge negative size compared to 35mm frames.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Keith, those are neat....did you scan them or make traditional darkroom prints from them? I've read that old glass plates often are hard to print because modern papers are too contrasty for them. Lee Friedlander printed the old glass plates that were made by E.J. Belloq and he wrote about the difficulty of printing them. He said the originals were made to print on POP paper (printing out paper....not made to be developed, it is exposed a very long time in the sun...contact printing...and the image appears from the long exposure and is then fixed). POP papers apparently require a very contrasty neg compared to modern papers meant to be chemically developed.

 

[Keith]

Keith, those are neat....did you scan them or make traditional darkroom prints from them? I've read that old glass plates often are hard to print because modern papers are too contrasty for them. Lee Friedlander printed the old glass plates that were made by E.J. Belloq and he wrote about the difficulty of printing them. He said the originals were made to print on POP paper (printing out paper....not made to be developed, it is exposed a very long time in the sun...contact printing...and the image appears from the long exposure and is then fixed). POP papers apparently require a very contrasty neg compared to modern papers meant to be chemically developed.

These are actually positives on the glass Chris and the glass appears be a semi opaque type. My friend scanned them on his flatbed and emailed the scans to me ... he wants me to clone out the damage around the young girl's neck.

 

[VinceC]

Positives on the glass -- daguerreotypes? Otherwise glass prints for some kind of display.

 

[bmattock]

Beautiful indeed Keith.


@Bill. Those 2 of yours on the beach are at Llandudno and the bridges are just a few miles away ay Conway. Gwynedd.
Not a lost Kingdom but an old principality. The English renamed all of Wales with "county" names but in the 1970's the Welsh regions retook their old names back.

That is where my family is from. Madoc was the family name. Once Princes of Powys, later marcher lords.

 

[rxmd]

They scan really well

That's a matter of development, preservation and luck. You can get really high density with glass plate negatives, and if the density is somewhere around 4 your scanner simply won't punch through.

I've been setting up a project for scanning a couple of thousand glass plates in Uzbekistan with a group of photographers. For an earlier exhibition project, they had some glass plate negatives where the only way to get them into the computer was by contact printing them, and the contacts had to be exposed for half an hour.

 

[bmattock]

That's a matter of development, preservation and luck. You can get really high density with glass plate negatives, and if the density is somewhere around 4 your scanner simply won't punch through.

I've been setting up a project for scanning a couple of thousand glass plates in Uzbekistan with a group of photographers. For an earlier exhibition project, they had some glass plate negatives where the only way to get them into the computer was by contact printing them, and the contacts had to be exposed for half an hour.

Interesting, I didn't know that. I used an old Epson PHOTO 2400 with 4x5 transparency adapter, didn't have any problems. I may well have been quite lucky.

 

[Tom A]

Keith, wonderful portraits. Yes, they do look a bit Nordic! I suspect that they were "duped" from the negative glass plate and used in a studio display. If your wife knows were they came from, you could probably find out some more stuff by connecting with that towns archives. In most smaller to medium Swedish cities there were only a handful of studios that did formal portraits - and, as often happens, they close and the negatives/plates go to the local museum.
I dont think you should do to much cleaning up of the scans - these plates are most likely 100+ years old and once they are cleaned up and "photoshopped" to death, they will look like theatrical shots taken today.

 

[Gumby]

Positives on the glass -- daguerreotypes?

The term you are seeking is "ambrotype". But ambros are negative unless you look at them thru the glass. Dags were on silver-plated plates.

 

[Pablito]

In most smaller to medium Swedish cities there were only a handful of studios that did formal portraits - and, as often happens, they close and the negatives/plates go to the local museum.

How extraordinarily fortunate. When this happens in Latin America, the negatives/plates often go to the garbage dump. Lucky if they go to a flea market.

 

[Al Kaplan]

I agree with Tom about the "restoration". Don't!

Leave the torn and faded edges just as they are. bmattock. Also some of your prints show signs of "silvering" along the edges. Supposedly this is caused by washing ALL of the hypo out of the paper, and since the edges tend to get washed better than the middle they "silver" over time, especially in the presence of acidic paper or matt board. It seems that a little bit of residual fixer left in the paper is actually a GOOD thing.

A bit of selenium toner in the hypo clear wil prevent silvering from happening.

 

[Pablito]

I dont think you should do to much cleaning up of the scans - these plates are most likely 100+ years old and once they are cleaned up and "photoshopped" to death, they will look like theatrical shots taken today.

I agree in principle; the trick is to use good judgment, not photoshop them to death, simply clean them up a bit while maintaining the "patina". You could get rid of (or lessen) the most offensive or distracting imperfections without eliminating all signs of aging thus having minimal impact on the old "feel" of the image.

 

[vdonovan]

Wet plate methods are gaining popularity for their unique results. The Rayko Photography Center in San Francisco has been offering classes for the past few years and they always sell out.

http://raykophoto.com/?page_id=32

They also have an annual wet plate show that has astounding stuff.

 

[Tom A]

Looking at the shots again. i suspect that they were shot on film (panchromatic - the blue eyes are not "faded") and later copied on to the glass plates for a backlit display in the studio window. This was very common in "them olden days". By the way, Rosemary's grand mother was a classy looking lady!
The fate of glass plates vary, they are bit fragile and often get dumped. One case is a large cache of them that was found, emulsions boiled off and used in a greenhouse!
In Helsinki there is a large collection of these plates, dating back to the 1870-90's. Finland was a russian "territory" and the photography was a "new" hobby. The "ruling elite" would do sunday outings with horse and carriage (and a chef + a wagon with servants} and go shooting. Often with 11x14 glass plate cameras. Astounding detail in the plates, but absolute murder to contact. You needed 0 grade paper and Selectol Soft developer and even then you often needed 12-15 min. exposure. POP paper would have been nice - but Finland is way north and for 6 month I dont think there was enough sunlight to expose it in one day!