Scouting Trees at Siloam Springs For My Pictorial Whispers Dry Plate Collodion & Kallitype Project

I spent the day scouting an area near my home called Siloam Springs. I live in a rural area with farmers and beautiful landscapes.

I decided to use my Hermagis Eidoscope 275mm and 375mm F4.5 soft focus Pictoralist lenses for this project, so I headed out into the field with the Artisan Viewfinder app on my iPhone and recorded a few possible compositions.

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Possible Future Compositions

If you click on the photos, you will notice wire frames for the 275mm and 375mm focal lengths.

I scouted this area over the winter and created several calotype paper negatives and Kallitypes. Now that I have decided to standardize on collodion dry plate negatives, I am heading back to this area. Because my narrative is aligned with grief, memory, and a path to recovery, I will take advantage of all four seasons and revisit the trees in their various conditions from completely defoliated in the winter to being vibrant and lush with leaves in the spring and summer.

If you want to understand the backstory and context of my work, you can read more about “why trees” in my Pictorial Whispers project.

Calotypes & Kallitypes From Last Winter

Here are a few examples of my calotype paper negatives and Kallitype prints from this past winter at Siloam Springs. At this time, I was making calotype paper negatives, wet collodion negatives, and dry plate collodion negatives to explore the different mediums and workflows. I ultimately decided on dry plate collodion negatives.