What will the next adventure be?

Posted byPaul W. DorrPosted inUncategorized

Well, that is a good question.  To some degree every day in NYC is a bit of an adventure,  but it is my next bicycle trip that I am referring to.

My last big ride, the “PEDAL PORTRAIT PROJECT’ was a great experience,  and ever since finishing that double cross country ride I have been dreaming of what my next tour will be.   When Clint, and I completed our transcontinental trip in 2010 we began talking about doing the route from Prudoe Bay, AK to Tierra del Fuego, the very tip of South America.  That trip is still on my bucket list, but after six years off the bicycle it would be a rather ambitious reintroduction to touring.  it is not the riding so much, but rather the type of photography, and camera gear that I plan on taking.  I have been doing wet plate collodian photography for the past two years, a fascinating technique that basically involves making ones own film.  The substrate, is Glass (Ambrotype), or metal (Tintype).

The wet plate method is aptly named, as the process requires the salted colloidian to be sensitized in a silver nitrate bath, exposed for anywhere from 2 seconds, to several minutes, and then immediately developed.  From start, to finish the “Film” must remain wet.  The plates can not be coated in advance, and must be developed on site.  This requires a portable darkroom, along with all the chemicals, and equipment needed.

So, that will be my next project.  Converting my B.O.B. trailer into a little dark box. I have purchased some cedar planks, and will mill them down into strips with cove, and bead edges.  Much like a strip built canoe, it will be glued together, then glassed. I will take photos of the process, and post them.

This gets us back to the trip, and why I have altered my plans.  Before heading off on a rather wild adventure I will do a test run with all my photographic, and camping gear.  NYC to The West Coast, and back sounds like a plan.  No set schedule. Though a year sounds good, and for the most part the weather will dictate my route.

I hope to be on the road March 10, 2021. My Sixtieth birthday.  Sweetpea, my bicycle, loaded up with camping, and camera gear.  Ready for the next adventure.

 

Published by Paul W. Dorr

A New York based photographer who still shoots film. Born, and raised in New England, and living the last thirty years in midcoast Maine, I took a job as Shipkeeper aboard the Wavertree at South Street Seaport Museum in the Winter of 2016/17. On my off days I find myself exploring the City with a camera at hand. At the moment I am shooting with a Mamiya RB67, but recently acquired an 8x10 Kodak Master View, with the hopes of doing some wet plate portrait work.