Interesting documentary about Ralph Snowball (dry plate...Newcastle, Australia...19th century).


Great story with amazing clarity, detail and tonal range in almost all of his photos. It's particularly remarkable considering all of his images were made with very early, uncoated lenses and probably hand made glass plate negatives with ortho emulsions.

Thanks for sharing, I really enjoyed watching.
 
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Great story with amazing clarity, detail and tonal range in almost all of his photos. It's particularly remarkable considering all of his images were made with very early, uncoated lenses and probably hand made glass plate negatives with ortho emulsions.

Thanks for sharing, I really enjoyed watching.
He got his children to develop his glass plates. When queried just now, my son declined to support my re-engagement with film photography. 😂
 
He got his children to develop his glass plates. When queried just now, my son declined to support my re-engagement with film photography. 😂
In an age where other minors were miners, I'd have been happy to develop a few negatives if I were one of his kids. Shows how much things have changed.
 
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Back then the alternative was to go up a chimney...
Yes, although he is 11 my son already makes money by fixing electronic and computer hardware and doing small programming jobs. He also made a sarcastic comment in response to my request to work for me that he heard the boss at that job (developing film for me) was a “total a**hole” 😂
 
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Back then the alternative was to go up a chimney...

Easier to go down the chimney than up.

Especially with a wet plate camera kit. Those 8x10" shooters were hefty pieces of gear.

All this gives the term "soot and whitewash" an entirely new meaning.

(I will now, again, leave the room.)

(Added later) And BTW this documentary is by far one of the best productions I've seen on YouTube in a long time.

The soot/whitewash quip is entirely off. The photographs I've seen in this docco are truly beautiful images.
 
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Easier to go down the chimney than up.

Especially with a wet plate camera kit. Those 8x10" shooters were hefty pieces of gear.

All this gives the term "soot and whitewash" an entirely new meaning.

(I will now, again, leave the room.)

And BTW this documentary is by far one of the best productions I've seen on YouTube in a long time.
Those negs were double plate (8.5x13 inch) or large cabinet/large tintype (13x10) size, not 8x10. Bigger!
 

Official R. Snowball splash page.


61 pages of digitized Snowball work.


On FlickR.
 
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