About the wet plate collodion process

The wet plate collodion process was invented in 1851 by Englishman Frederick Scott Archer. It replaced the earlier Daguerreotype and calotype photographic processes.

As the name implies, practitioners must coat, sensitize, expose, develop and fix the image while it is still wet. This necessitates the use of a mobile darkroom or dark box. Photographers can either make glass-plate negatives, tintypes or Ambrotypes with the process.

I usually make tintypes on black-coated aluminum plates. Each one is a unique, one-of-a-kind object. I do not scan and make inkjet prints of them — ever. The same goes for my Ambrotypes, which are like tintypes but on glass.

When I make glass-plate negatives, I only produce hand-made prints in gelatine silver, salt, albumen or the like . I never use computers or mechanical printers.