Mirror Self-Portrait Captured Using a Wet Plate Camera
Yesterday we shared an old school mirror self-portrait from 1917, captured by a young Australian fight pilot named Thomas Baker on a Kodak camera. After seeing that image, photographer Sam Cornwell decided to shoot his own old-school mirror selfie… using a 12×15-inch wet plate camera!
He set up for the photo by bringing everything into his living room:
The ingredients list included: two big 5500k lamps, a couple of large mirrors, his four-month-old son named Indigo, and a set of block letters that spell out “PetaPixel.”
After arranging everything the way he wanted in the frame — which took some time due to the massive lens — Cornwell created a picture using a two-minute exposure:
The long-ish exposure time turned his son into what he calls the “weird blob” at the bottom of the frame:
Cornwell estimates that the picture cost about £10-£15 (~$16-$24) to create.
Now here’s a challenge for the rest of you: try your hand at shooting your own curious mirror self-portrait using an alternative style of photography, and then show us what you come up with. If we receive good ones, we’ll find some way to share them, whether it’s by updating this post, creating a Flickr set, or publishing a new roundup post. Good luck, y’all!
Image credits: Photographs by Sam Cornwell and used with permission
