The wet plate collodion process is the granddaddy of analog photography. One of the earliest and probably the most popular systems of making a photograph, wet plate photography was accidentlly discovered by an Englishman named Frederick Scott Archer in 1851.



           PROCESS


For that process I'm using old camera from 19 century, made in Switzerland. I do Tintypes (made on thin metal plate ) and Ambrotypes (made on glass plate). It is a finicky process, each portrait is a truly unique piece - there is no negative, no printing, no copy. Wet plate collodion is slow and mistake-prone. You can only do one thing at a time, and it requires your focus and attention. You pour the collodion onto a metal or glass plate and soak it in a silver nitrate solution to make your emulsion. The edges are almost always irregular, and beautiful. Imperfect pouring of the collodion, or later of the developer, results in streaks, spots or other faults.  Exposure times are usually several seconds long. I'm really enjoy and like to do wet plate.



Using Format