Join us for a day on location, creating beautiful dry plate negatives.

Using large format cameras and a selection of lenses, you’ll produce a pair of dry plate negatives on the streets of Bristol, which you will then process by hand in the Negative Thinking darkroom, before making a contact print of each one.

The dry plate process was invented in 1871 by Joseph Wilson Swan, and quickly gained popularity due to its convenience relative to the other processes available at the time.

As the predecessor of sheet film as we know it today, dry plates are rich in detail and fine tonality, and produce beautiful prints in silver gelatine.

This workshop is suitable for those with a little experience in the darkroom and large format photography. All equipment and materials are provided, but participants are welcome to bring their own 4×5” large format cameras.