Selfie stick? - no, that's a Black & Decker Workmate.

As Large As Life.

Some people will be familiar  with "The Behemoth" - my home-built 20"x24" mammoth plate camera which I've demonstrated at a few workshops. The current spell of good weather has meant I've finally had the time and conditions to have a bit more of a play with it.
The lens is a 21" (533mm) f/10 Taylor Hobson Cooke from a process camera with enormous coverage. The bellows extend to about 32 inches (812mm) which allows a good range of focus but this means it won't focus closer than about 60 inches (1.5m). This is close enough for most things, especially at this scale but it would be interesting to be able to photograph things at life-size.

A bit of calculating (the principal lens formula: 1/V+1/U = 1/f is so useful in camera building!) shows that for a 21 inch lens I needed a bellows length (U) of 42 inches. - Actually for 1:1 magnification it's easy- just double the focal length).  As the bellows wouldn't stretch further I built the Behemoth Close-Up Accessory - a 10 inch deep wooden box which clips to the back of the camera to extend it.

So to test it: The idea was always to make life-size head and shoulders portraits so I started with a self -portrait. - Always one to make things as difficult as possible for myself!
The depth of focus is tiny at f/10: - maybe an inch at best. I used by head clamp/rest to make my position the same every time and set up a rod on a stand with a paper flag as close to where my eye would be as I could. Focusing on this was just about possible.

The full set up:B&D Workmate bench is better than a tripod...

I used ordinary R/C enlarging paper as the sensitive material. This is around ISO 3 so I set up outside in open shade where there was a decent amount of light. The camera isn't very heavy -at least for its size(!) and will sit on a tripod. However, for this I used a Black & Decker 'Workmate' bench. The advantage is that the camera can be slid back and forth a few inches on the bench and locked in place much more quickly and easily than with a tripod.  With close up work like this it's a lot easier to set the focus and move the camera.
The two plate cameras behind me are just to make an interesting background. The round mirror by my feet is adding a bit of reflected highlight into my eyes. The two sticks to my right are my focusing target and to operate the card flap over the lens I used as a shutter. (This idea I got from Sally Mann: It works beautifully!)  Also visible is the metronome used for timing the exposures. 45 seconds at f/32 was the final exposure.

Here's my final picture for the day: I can't say it's particularly great: The chair I used made me 'slump' too far back and the camera should have been lower. My grumpy expression is mainly due to trying to keep still and with my eyes open for a long time on a bright day. Anyhow, it was meant as a test of technique and feasibility more than a piece of artistic expression.

Life-size self portrait. PR. August 2016

The paper negs were processed in the darkroom and then re-photographed and tonally inverted digitally. - I haven't had time to go back and contact print them yet. I'm therefore guessing a bit what constitutes a good paper neg: I just worked on getting detail in both ends of the scale (it's a fixed-grade 2). More on this when I've done some more work on it..