The current state of photography today is that most anyone can pick up a digital camera, point it and make a nice picture. The camera does the focusing, accounts for available light, and moves the image from its sensor to its memory card, usually without the photographer thinking about it.
But there was a time long before when photography was a much more involved process. Reaching back before rolls of film, early photography involved heavy equipment, large plates, dangerous chemicals, and patience. Some may think of this type of photography as ancient and outdated, but in reality, it’s an art form. Nineteenth century wet plate “tintype”, as it’s called, is a language of photography rarely spoken these days. It’s a challenging, slow process merging history, chemistry, science and art into one-of-a-kind images expressing the details of our lives with great clarity.
Wet plate was once high technology and the primary way truly unique images were captured. A lot can be learned from this style of shooting. Today, 19th century tintype photography and 21st century digital photography aren’t opposing forces. Rather, they’re complementary, and elements of each can enhance the other.
But one doesn’t just go out and purchase the necessary chemicals, get under the hood and start shooting instantly. It’s a meticulous process that must be followed in the right order to produce a successful image. Incorrect measurement, a delay in time, or a change in temperature or humidity can make or break hours of work. In addition, respect must be paid to the chemicals involved that are dangerous and need to be handled with extreme caution.
First, we spend time composing the image upside down and backwards through the ground glass of a large, one hundred fifty year-old, tripod-mounted camera. The plate used to capture the image is prepared by flowing a special mixture of collodion onto prepared tin or glass which is sensitized in a bath of silver nitrate and loaded into a wooden holder in the dark that is placed in the waiting camera. Moments later the lens cap is removed and replaced for just a few seconds to make the exposure. The plate is developed by flooding it with iron sulfate in a nearby dark box tent while the coating is still wet. This is followed by a water rinse and fixing in a tray containing a mixture of cyanide! We have about 7-10 minutes to complete the process or the image could be lost. After, the plate is thoroughly washed. Once dry, it’s coated with a warm varnish made from gum sandarac and lavender oil the same way it was done in the 1850’s. There are many steps involved with producing just one photograph! But when done correctly, the results are wonderful.
“J. Dole & Son’s, Tintype Artists” was created mainly to get both my boys interested in photography, both new and old. Learning historic processes and creating unique results that we could achieve together is something fascinating to do with photography that we could all agree on. We also use our Nikon D3X to create wet plate images through an enlarged positive process and projection printing onto a collodion plate in the darkroom. Stay tuned – we’ll have more on that in our next article!
