Inadvertent self portrait

Walked to work in the sleet and snow this morning, with boots and two pairs of socks on.

Standing on the platform at Linlithgow station trying to take a shot down the tracks to the west and the sun was so bright that I couldn't tell that I'd accidentally pressed the switch to front camera button on the phone and had taken this lovely self portrait looking east.

Oh well, thems the breaks.

Picked up the prints from yesterday, and I'm still pleasantly surprised at how the cobbled together panorama worked out. Just need to get the exposure setting right (and keep my fingers crossed) next time.

While picking them up I bumped into my darkroom mentor Mo. She introduced me to the world of wet plate printing which she has been toying around with lately ( toying sounds wrong given her skills, but then that's why i take photos rather than write). It all looks pretty smart, and fairly dangerous, which we'll get on to now. Turns out you need some fairly volatile materials to do it, and even with the less volatile options the amount of noxious fumes being generated was not to be sniffed at, so to speak. The intake of said gases can only explain my willingness to then pose for some wet plate shots...oh dear.

Still, I look forward to seeing the results. And avoiding the cyanide.