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Photographer takes you through his wet plate collodion process

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Collodion process was invented over 160 years ago, and photography has gone a long way since then. Still, some photographers use this process even in the digital era, and they produce splendid images. Photographer Adrian Cook uses collodion process to create photos on aluminum plates.

Guardian Australia‘s picture editor, Jonny Weeks, joins Cook in his portable caravan darkroom as he shoots Sydney Harbour. Cook talks about his processes but also explains why wet plate collodion photography is so appealing to him even in the digital age.

The entire start to finish process to make ultra large format wet plate photographs

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Despite picking up a little in popularity in the last year or two, wet plate photography is still quite an alien process to many photographers. More and more information about it pops up onto the web every day. What I’ve not seen, though, until now, is an entire start to finish video or article which details the entire process.

Thankfully, photographer Markus Hofstätter has done exactly that, in this video. So that you don’t miss out on any of the process, he shot the whole thing in 360° with his Insta360 camera for the complete surround experience. So, throw on your headsit, sit back, and have a watch.

Photographer mixes old with new – shooting Halloween wet plates filmed on a 360° camera

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I’ve seen some rather interesting Halloween photos cross my desk over the past week or so. Few that are quite as interesting as this project from photographer Markus Hofstätter, though. Shooting some Halloween portraits on large format wet plate. Best of all, he shot a behind the scenes video showing how it was done. While it’s not a 360° video, it makes some fairly heavy use of a 360° camera, with some pretty cool effects and transitions.

This drone-mounted large format camera made the world’s first aerial tintype photograph

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Combining levels of technology from vastly different times is often very fascinating. Sometimes it’s amusing, and occasionally it fails miserable. This time, failure is definitely not the word that springs to mind. For this particular merging of devices, photographer Giles Clement mounted a large format camera to a drone.

Why? To create the world’s first aerial tintype photographs, of course. Not content with simply making a photograph from the air, though, Giles and the team also produced the world’s first drone tintype selfie. Well, if one really wants to bring tintypes into the modern age, then I suppose one has to, really. It does look pretty awesome, though.

Photographer uses a 19th-century technique to capture haunting portraits of children

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In the age of digital images, Spanish photographer Jacqueline Roberts goes over 160 years into the past. She uses a 19th-century photographic process to create hauntingly beautiful portraits of children.

Her artwork is made by using wet plate collodion, the process introduced in 1851. So, her photos aren’t only tangible and immortal, but they also stand out from any modern photographic work. The kids in her images stare right into your soul, and each plate she creates is one of a kind.

Jacqueline has shared a few words about her work with us. She also shares some of her amazing photos, and you’ll find it hard to stop looking at them.

The world’s largest wet plate camera captures heart warming personal stories

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After building his amazing truck camera, Ian Ruhter went traveling across the US, taking huge wet plate photos. During the filming of a documentary about the residents in Slab City, Ian was attempting to make the world’s largest ambrotype. Actor Gary Oldman joined Ian on set and documented his process, as a colleague and a friend.

This collaboration and their friendship led to creating a short movie “The Carnival of Dreams”, the last installment of Ian’s Silver & Light project. It depicts the bond between colleagues, friends, loved ones and soulmates. It also shows the process that takes place within this journey, the stories of people they’ve met in Slab city and the amazing ambrotype portraits they made.

Photographer creates celebrity tintype portraits at the Sundance Film Festival

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With film’s second demise looking more imminent with each Fuji announcement, wet plate photography gets more and more appealing. Don’t get me wrong, I primarily shoot digital, but I enjoy the process of creating analogue. It not because it “forces me to slow down” or anything arty. It’s just relaxing, especially developing it.

In this video, portrait photographer Victoria Will discusses her celebrity tintype portraits at the Sundance Film Festival. What began with Victoria having her own tintype portrait made turned into a great project with some fantastic photographs.

Prepare, shoot and develop wet plate collodion through the eyes of the photographer

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Photographers today often complain about the amount of time they have to sit at the computer processing images. When you see what wet plate photographers had to go through for every single shot, it doesn’t seem so bad.

In Be The Collodionist from photographer Monsieur Nède, we see what life used to be like for photographers. This is also still the way of life for a small number of photographers today.

Photographer explains how to create and shoot wet plate photography

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In the modern digital world, what is it that fascinates us about photography techniques that died out maybe a hundred years or more ago?

Whatever it is, you can satisfy your desires a little bit with this video featuring wet plate photographer David Rambow, who walks us through his thoughts and process when working in this medium.

The Idlozi Is A Hand Made Talbotype Camera That Looks Into Your Soul

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Polish photographer Emil Stankiewicz crafted this amazing Talbotype camera by hand. It is called Idlozi – the word comes from Africa and it means a window to your heritage soul. (yea, some stuff is better left in its native language).

Aside from the camera itself being 100% homemade, it uses homemade photographic paper (see the movies below)

One formula that Emil uses produces a negative paper, which Emil re-exposes on a new paper to get a positive, and other formula allow Emil to press the photos into thick paper producing stunning antique looking photos.

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