Who we are and why we do this
From reenactment tintypes, to still life ambrotypes, to studio portraits, photographers have embraced the ethereal look, handmade process, and arcane yet simple materials of wetplate. Wetplate photographers can be artists, engineers, wilderness travelers, studio operators or backyard hobbyists. But they all have been deeply impacted by this beautiful technique.
COMMENTS
(from the old Website restored)
Garrett Allen
May 9th 08:01am
Wet plate attracted me because of its challenging learning curve and esoteric, historic processes, which gave me a purpose during a time of rebuilding.
Matt Magruder
May 9th 08:09am
Wet plate, like all of us, is filled with beautiful and unique flaws.
Henning Sjogren
May 9th 08:15am
To me, wet plate collodion photography is about flow: the flow of the collodion over the plate, flow of the developer, the flow of time and light that exposes the plate. And of course that unique flow I’m „in“ when I can shoot plate after plate and everything just works.
Quinn Jacobson
May 9th 08:22am
Wet plate is the perfect syntax for my work. I use it as a metaphor as it relates to abandonment. The process was abandoned and forgotten, just as most marginalized people are by the mainstream. I also embrace it for its imperfections; echoing our human imperfections.
Harry Taylor
May 9th 08:32am
Wet Plate allows me to stare rather than glance; the time change lets in a high level of romance.
Cor Breukel
May 9th 08:33am
WPC is for me about connection to the past and directness, the shortest route to the essence of photography in the practical sense: mix your own relative simple chemistry, pour and expose in a basic camera, marvel at the almost instant image, connect directly back to the subject.. The resulting image is still relevant today.
Katie Cooke
May 9th 08:34am
For me, every wet plate image is made of time, dissolved in silver. Each picture is an act of faith, chemistry, and magic.
Ray Morgenweck
May 9th 08:35am
For me, it lets me build beautiful things that my Dad would be proud of.
John Brewer
May 9th 08:36am
I’m drawn to the ethereal and mercurial nature of collodion, the contemplative nature of using the view camera, the long exposure and the fact every image is individual with its own artefacts; the complete antithesis of digital imagery where the perfect image can be printed an unlimited number of times, the first print identical to the last…
Jo Gane
May 9th 08:37am
Wet plate for me is about creating a skin, a surface that reflects the man-made surface of the world and suggests what lies below it.
Tim Telkamp
May 9th 08:38am
Wet plate photography is an escape from our fast paced, high tech, pre-packaged and branded world… it’s mad scientist chemistry that’s magic because it is none of those things. America came of age on the ground glass of wet plate cameras. I was drawn to the process with an interest in applying the historic process to my contemporary world, hoping to find perspective on how much we’ve grown… or perhaps how little.
Rene Rondeau
May 9th 08:38am
Wet plate photography is time travel. It’s a hands-on journey back to an era when taking a picture required a combination of patience, chemistry, and craftsmanship, ultimately creating art.
Paul Kinney
May 9th 08:39am
Ether, glass and cyanide. What could be cooler than that!
Joe Smigiel
May 9th 08:40am
The similar appearance of a contemporary wetplate portrait to those of the mid-19th century always makes me feel as though I’m observing a phantom. The wetplate process is quite literally ethereal and seems ritualistic to me, a consecration of sorts.
Indra
June 15th 07:48pm
Besides this obvious special aesthetic feel to the plates the cumbersome nature of the process has drawn me towards it. In a world of digital hastiness this feels like the perfect kick in the butt it needs. I can use it to emphasize my horror towards today’s superficialness as it’s so the opposite with showing all the flaws. It’s the flaws that make for perfect.
Zach Risso
June 19th 11:32pm
Having grown tired of the practically hands-off approach when it came to shooting digital photographs, I turned to film. Still not sated, I rebelled against this digital age and found, arguably, the most hands-on photographic process available.
Andrew Richmond
August 27th 09:26pm
Wet-Plate is the only way I have found to succeed at making the images I visualize in my head. I don’t need special software, expensive gear, or technical knowledge of modern film and lighting. The process sounds complicated, but it is photography performed in one of its simplest forms. For me, it just works.
Derek Ralston
April 27th 11:48pm
Wet plate is a return to both my roots in photography, and to the art itself. My love of photography began with my love of history, as a young boy. The Civil War exhibited a pull upon my life, because of the history of my family that fought in that war, and for the beauty of the images that I discovered of that time. From the moment that I laid eyes upon those first collodion images, I knew that photography was to be my expression of art. Decades later, as a working professional photographer, I still feel the pull of those images. They have drawn me back. Back to a different place and time, yet forward in my own artistic journey.
Denis Roussel
May 1st 03:35pm
Before working with wet-plate collodion, I had been experimenting with the physical and chemical manipulations of negative and positive film. I was interested in finding processes where the element of chance was inherent and which had a direct impact on the aesthetic of the images created. Wet-plate collodion has been the logical continuation of these experimentations. I enjoy the hands-on approach to photography. I love the fact that although I am, everyday, gaining greater control over the technique, I am always surprised by the final photograph. And I am of course enthralled with the aesthetic of images.
LiRong
May 4th 11:42pm
Wet plate photography is a milestone in the history of photography I recall history of photography
Roman Kravchenko
June 6th 09:28am
Wet Plate collodion process, for me at all living substance which acts as energy storage Wilhelm Reich – this glass battery movements of thought photographed may transfer to the operator as positive thoughts as the dark side of man, therein lies the main problem that we are trying to solve.
Christer Tornkvist
May 6th 07:05pm
Wet plate collodion is for me is a question about being slow. Both me as a photographer and the sitter as well as my curiosity of historic photographic process. By slowing down both me and sitter get time to reflect, instead of shoots hundreds of raw files in my 5dmkii. I’ll also get a closer contact with the material I’m using and let the emulsion evolve in a pace with my ideas, ie basically true to the material. This essential in my relation to Art & Craft movement from end of 1900th century.
Ugljesa Dapcevic
May 10th 06:57pm
I love it!
Ron Jones
May 3rd 01:43pm
Wet Plate photography, is taking the time to smell the roses. To walk thru the process, smell the chemicals and work to improve every new picture you create with all the flaws is like stepping back when things were slower paced. In our world of instant everything it is rewarding to take the time and energy to slow down and see how hard our forefathers had it. It makes you appreciate what it took to make America such a great country and the craftsman who made it. .
Ron Jones
Ron Jones
sonia macak
May 10th 06:21am
it is like going home … from where I came from
3 Comments
This is a process that changed my way to see and approach the world, for the last 5 years has been my main process, the results are very unique, photography is king!
WPC is a great hobby for someone like me who is interested in chemistry, optics, and making real, unique things with your own two hands.
I started photographing when I was thirteen. I’m fifty-five now. Of those years, more than twenty belong to the collodion. Every morning after waking up, I go into my studio, look at my plants (I grow roses and bonsai), my cameras, and grab a bottle of collodion. It may be ridiculous, but it is. It’s not fun, hobby, it’s a way of life. There is no other way for me. Am I writing poorly in English? Maybe because I’m Hungarian.