180 in 912.5 Days

Music | Lush Life by John Coltrane

In conversation with one of my peers, I came upon and amazing statistic, regarding my love of all things Wet Plate Collodion. I have worked with this medium for the last 2.5 years, more so this summer. I remember saving and eventually purchasing the necessary equipment, chemistry and other expendable materials where I was finally able to do wet plates on my own. One of the things I recalled was that the cut sheets of aluminum I purchased was in the quantity of about 130. I also remember that at the beginning of this year, I had to put in an order again, since I was running out. What this enabled me to figure out was, in the 2.5 years of shooting wet plates, I've only shot approximately 180 plates total. That means I've tried to take 180 exposures in 2.5 years. On the average, I've shot per month, 6 exposures.

The humorous aspect is that number... In the digital realm that now pervades us all, I could shoot 180 exposures in an hour for a portrait session. We can now shoot frame after frame, memory card after memory card until we eventually get the photo that will be pleasing to both creator and client.

This goes back to a post I made about Chance and Intent. The idea that as we shoot less, we are more apt to creating what we want as opposed to shooting until we get something we want.