Wet Plate Collodion

The wet plate collodion process was invented by the English sculptor and chemist Frederick Scott Archer in 1848 and publicly described in 1851. I’ve fallen in love with this analogue process whereby it suits my love for all things old and vintage. This process is the nearest thing you will get to digital photography in the way you can almost instantly develop a photo for instant results.

The collodion process is Orthocromatic which means it doesnt see the red spectrum of light and can be proccessed under red safe light. It also means that it sees colour and UV differently. For example if you are wearing red, it will come out very dark to black. People with blue eye colour be be shown as more white.

It’s what make this process so special.

The other unique feature is that we are placing silver molecules on the plate, not clumps of grain like film, so the resulting image can be very clear. Its also very archival as it’s real silver on the plate and if properly varnished and protected, will last for centuries. Thats why you can still find old plates in good condition from the 1800’s

I mainly specialise in ‘tintype’ opposed to ‘ambrotype’ which is a positive image on a metal plate which has a black background. If requested, I can do a glass (ambrotype) plate but it needs to be backed with black velvet to make the image stand out. It is also more fragile.