Learning the Wet-Plate Collodion Photo Process (Tintypes)

My first outdoor tintype shoot I conducted with the assistance of Michelle Baughan and Ben Williams. The left image is the resulting tintype from the shoot.

For the past year I've been working on making tintype photographs, also known as the wet-plate collodion photo process. 

The wet-plate collodion process was first theorized by Gustav Le Gray, but eventually came to fruition in 1851 through the work of Frederick Scott Archer. The most popular photographic process at the time was the Daguerreotype, but within the decade, the collodion process succeeded the Daguerreotype in popularity. The collodion process was most often used for portraiture, landscapes, architecture, and general fine art.

Gustav Le Gray (1820-1884), the French Photographer credited with theorizing the collodion photographic process.

Frederick Scott Archer (1813-1857), the English Photographer credited with successfully deriving the collodion photographic process into reality.

One of the most notable historical events documented with the collodion process was the Crimean War. Roger Fenton is credited for many famous collodion photographs of the Crimean War and is considered one of the very first war photographers in the history of photography. The collodion process requires the use of a darkroom, so accordingly, Fenton had to haul around a mobile darkroom everywhere to create his photographic plates. Fenton mostly captured still-life subjects and portraits of war due to the collodion's labor-intensive and delicate process.

Roger Fenton (1819-1869), the British Photographer and pioneer in war photography.

Fenton sitting on his mobile darkroom. This was hauled anywhere he would make a collodion photograph.

"Valley of the Shadow of Death" (1855), a collodion photograph by Fenton of a scene from the Crimean War.

Today, the collodion process (most often referred to as 'tintypes') is popular worldwide among several fine art photographers and has created some of the world's most stunning imagery. Many contemporary celebrities have had their portrait taken on a tintype, fine-art photographers often opt for the tintype medium, and supplies to make tintypes still remain in constant production.

Above: Victoria Will created a series of tintypes of actors, actresses, and other celebrities, ​beginning her project at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. See more about Will's shoot here.

Paul Adams (right), Professor of Photography at Brigham Young University, along with former BYU student Jordan Layton, made 20"x24" tintype plates for their project titled "Vanishing Voices", making portraits of remaining speakers of their native language about to disappear. A plate from the series (left) has been acquired by the Smithsmonian National Portrait Gallery.

Learning the tintype process involves all sorts of variables that can all affect the resulting tintype for better or for worse. It's virtually impossible to create a flawless plate, but that's one of the qualities of tintypes that makes it so visually interesting. Below is an exhaustive list of anything that can go wrong in the making of a tintype (well, anything that I can think of).
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- accidentally exposing light-sensitive chemicals
​- spilling expensive chemicals when filtering
- poor application of chemicals onto tintype plate
- miscalculating exposure time, which is most often measured with an ISO speed of 1
- accidentally scratching/rubbing a developed image before varnishing it to completion
- not setting up the camera properly or handling the camera delicately (cameras used for tintypes are most often old, large and intricate to set up, and requires special attention to detail and careful handling to prevent any damage)
- having light leak into other parts of the camera (again, old cameras are often used for tintypes, which can bring unknown light-leaks due to the aging of the camera's construction)
- accidental exposure of plate before in-camera exposure is taken or after in-camera exposure is taken
- mixing chemicals incorrectly
- mishandling chemicals (they are toxic, dangerous, and some flammable)
- over or under-developing (developing requires quick attention to detail; when details in the highlights show up, a stop bath must be applied immediately to stop the developing. If a stop bath is applied too early or too late, the image can be ruined)
- outside temperature can affect chemicals to react differently
- for outdoor shoots, setting up a darkroom with no light leaks
- not wearing the correct protective equipment or not wearing it correctly
- having a plate catch on fire while applying its final varnish (applying varnish requires using an alcohol candle while holding the varnished plate above the flame; varnish is very flammable)

In addition, not having any assistance on a tintype shoot makes things even more difficult.

There's many more things that can affect the tintype's final result, and they can happen from even the most minuscule of variables. After reading this list it can easily become intimidating to learn how to perform the wet-plate collodion process. And I'm sure most of these things listed won't make sense until actually trying the wet-plate collodion process.

Here are 3 plates, one plate in the fixing tray (left) to reverse the negative image into a positive image, a plate in the final wash (middle) to rid all remaining chemical traces, and a plate on a drying rack (top right corner). All plates need to dry completely before sealing the varnish, which will keep the image retained for dozens of years.

A lighting set-up (left) and the resulting tintype (right).

Here is another plate on the drying rack. It may looked finished but before varnish is applied, even the slightest of scratches can irrevocably damage the image.

The video above is a behind-the-scenes look at the lighting and camera set-up for a tintype I made in the studio.

This is me after setting up the camera for my first outdoor tintype shoot.

One risk of the chemicals used comes from the silver nitrate liquid. If any of the silver touches your skin it will result in a burn, darkening the impacted spots, and won't heal until the skin cells have replenished themselves (which can take up to 2-3 weeks). Luckily, the burns do not hurt. Here I had splashed a tiny bit of silver onto my ankles and my ankles looked like this for a few weeks.

The video above was from my very first tintype shoot I conducted, which happened to be an outdoor shoot. You can see I set up an ice-fishing tent to create a make-shift darkroom.

I have done two outdoor tintype shoots so far, and while both were incredibly challenging, the resulting tintypes were stunning. Plus, the camera looks really great for taking pictures of it.

Below are scans of my most successful tintypes I've created in the past year. I worked on tintypes May-July of 2021, and January-April of 2022. I'm very satisfied with my work and have learned so much as a photographer from working on this process. I've really come to appreciate how far photography has come as a technology. It's incredible what digital cameras can do compared to working with tintypes, and most people don't understand how much photography has progressed since its invention – but I sure know now, from personal experience.