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I watched this video and had to pick my jaw up off the floor so I could write this post.

This is an incredible photo studio. I feel like a total slacker for having the small space that I have. I guess I have different needs.

When you watch this video, look at how well this studio adapts to different needs, how he can do different kinds of subjects easily and how well it is lit. Brilliant stuff.

Anyway, check this out. It’s well worth it.

I’ve written before about Quinn Jacobson and Wet Plate Collodion photography, an all but forgotten technique of sensitizing sheets of glass and making exposures on that glass instead of our more modern plastic films. Jacobson practices and teaches this process.

Beginning as a reflection of his early life, the video transitioned to a good introduction of the techniques of wet plate photography. The video then transitioned again into an interview of his portraiture subjects.

These weren’t your ordinary subjects, the pretty people of life. Here his subjects are the people of his home town – people who generally would be considered the underbelly of society – criminals, mentally challenged, the physically and mentally handicapped. The type of people that a photographer generally leaves as soon as the photograph is taken. Here, however, the photographs were followed by interviews. These people were given a chance to tell a bit of their stories, a moving caption for the photographs. There was a sense of the dignity of the subject regardless of the trouble that person has had in life.

If you have a curiosity about old photographic techniques such as wet plate photography or if you’ve ever had the desire to see a subject as more than just the momentary focus of a camera, you might be interested in this two part video. I enjoyed it. I would have loved to have seen more.

I’ve never seen the process of making a bromoil print before. This is just fascinating stuff to me. It’s a very manual, labor intensive process and it’s beautiful.