Mancave Studio Test Shoot

For about a little over a month I have been MIA due to travel, but now that I have been back, and officially doing wet plate again, I have something to show for it. 
For the past year my friend (and mentor) Dave, has been adding on to his Mancave studio, to have an indoor shooting area rather than shooting outside. And like the rest of studio, it 1880's themed. 
So on Thursday I met up with Nick & Dave and my dad came along and we did a soft run through of the studio and testing out the 7 month old collodion we had.
Now, most of plates from Thursday involve Daves cat, LB (a.k.a Lover Boy). Once I saw him falling asleep on the chair I couldn't resist!
All of my 5x7 plates were taken using my Voigtlander lens. 

LB on Chair. 5x7 Tintype, 18 seconds using a Voigtlander Lens

Couldn't resist doing a crop of this place because I felt impressed on the sharpness of this plate! 

5x7 Tintype, 10 second exposure.

The Full Plates below were shot with a Dallmeyer 3A lens, using Daves rolling studio camera.

Full Plate Tintype, 16 second exposure. Featuring my 5x7 camera.

Towards the end of the day we started getting artifacts on the plate as soon as we fixed them (using KCN). I'm still not sure of the cause. You can it in the last two plates. 

Dave, Full Plate Tintype, 22 seconds exposure. Dave is holding a 5A Dallmeyer lens in his lap.

After months of not doing wet plate and not practicing my pouring skills at all, I was worried that I was losing my edge with the process, but now that I started again I feel a bit better about my pouring abilities. Even Dave got to do some tintypes to! 

Fun fact! See the curtains that are hanging up against the wall? They belonged to Alfred Cheney Johnston! Dave started collecting some of his studio belongings years and ago, and now that the posing part of the studio is next to complete, my mum and I got the task to re-sew some of the fabric lining together and fixing some holes.