Everything has been foggy lately, one night blurring into the next day, the future feeling unclear. I’m finishing up my 5th year as an Aunspaugh Fellow at the University of Virginia, and I find myself questioning what I even accomplished the past 8 months. I had such lofty goals in August, coming in with bright eyes and a mile-wide grin. Expectations are a dangerous thing; no matter how high or low you think you set the bar, the results are never what you expected. I’ve had a lot of highs and lows this year, with the lows being more prominent. I just thought I’d have so much more work produced at this point.
I started working with wet plate collodion in the fall, and it’s just been a perpetual struggle since then. I think that may be my main frustration about my time as a 5th year (we are called ’the fifth years’ so that’s my identifier). I basically had it working when I started, but then I was discouraged from using the process so I set it aside. When I finally picked it back up in December, nothing was working or making sense anymore. Here are my first three (in order):