Hello all, I just wanted to tell everyone about my John Coffers workshop experience. I attended his first workshop of this year May 2009. Located in the finger lakes region of New York, it is a beautiful setting for sure. You have the option to camp at Johns farm or stay at a local B&B. I chose to stay at Johns. He has tents there with cotts or Tee-pees. You would need to bring your own food and water. Workshop starts around 8:30-9am and lasts til you go to bed around 11pm. It is ALOT of wetplate for the money. John goes over equipment and processes. We made tintypes , ambrotypes as well as glass negatives. We also made albumen prints. John provides all cameras and equipment needed. He is always on hand to make suggestions and assist you with any questions. After a long day of shooting we would varnish plates into the evening, we also jappaned plates. All told I think I brought back about 25 plates of assorted processes. There were at least 5 or so that I wasnt happy with that got recycled.
If you stay at johns I would suggest a coleman grill, we cooked eggs and bacon each morning, that worked out great for us. John does not stop for lunch so if you want to eat we kind of did lunch on the fly. It must be all that fresh air, that guy has alot of energy. Dinner we usually cooked on a fire , spaghetti, meatballs, or whatever. There is fresh milk each day from "STAR" , Johns cow. Tastes great and its good for you...go figure. The only thorn on this rose would be the outhouse. The men had no problem with it but I think the women werent too thrilled by the smell. It is spotless but the odor is a little strong. Everyones cell phone in the class seemed to have good reception, if you need the internet it is 5 min away at the library in Dudee.
I highly recomend this workshop , I feel very confident to go out and make wetplates on my own now. It was alot of fun as well. John has many antique farm items that make great photo opps. He is very generous with his knowledge of wetplate. If your interested I would book now for 2010 as this year is sold out for worksops. If you book early he gives a discount as well. If you can not get to his workshop then I would tell you to buy his "DOERS GUIDE" and DVD set it gives all info needed to do wetplate. The DVD set is great as it shows hands on footage. So in closing I would say this... You wont find more bang for your wetplate buck than at "CAMP TINTYPE" you'll learn all you need to know about wetplate and have fun at the same time. Hope this helps anyone considering this workshop.........Frank