Ever since stumbling across Ian Ruhter’s film ‘Silver & Light’, I’ve been fascinated by his journey of buying and then converting a van into the largest camera to make the world's largest ambrotypes (also known as a collodion positive).
He has travels all across America for several years documenting landscapes and people on this journey. For the last two years he has traveled to Slab City in California for ten days at a time to create 46x59 inch portraits alongside Will Eichelberger. A recently released documentary short by Lauren Vance called The Carnival of Dreams gives a behind-the-scenes view of this fascinating photographic process. In this film he is there with Gary Oldman who is also shooting ambrotypes but on a smaller scale.
https://vimeo.com/ianruhter
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Peter
Gary Oldman© Ian Ruhter
Phyllis© Ian Ruhter
Baby Aiden© Ian Ruhter