In early March of this year I was asked by Hector Sancez at Indianapolis Monthly to do a wetplate collodion portrait of 24 year old IndyCar driver J R Hildebrand for the May issue. When we originally scheduled the job we were fortunate to have a forcast of about 68 degrees. Unusual for early March. Because of JR's busy schedule, we had to change it to one day earlier. Unfortunately it was only 28 degrees that day, which meant we had to work indoors. Wetplate photography becomes more problematic in the cold. Luckily, I was able to set up near one of the many garage doors in Panther Racing's facility. After setting everything up, including JR in his first pose and preparing a plate for exposure, we opened the garage door behind the camera. That provided us with plenty of daylight and a blast of cold air. The first plate pictured here is the one used in the magazine.
Here's a link to the magazine article: http://www.indianapolismonthly.com/features/Story.aspx?ID=1696255
