Process

Wet-plate collodion process is a historic photographic process invented in 1851 by Frederick Scott Archer. It involves using large format cameras with long exposure times and exposing images directly on glass. The glass plate is coated with collodion, sensitized in silvernitrate and exposed while still wet. The chemicals involved are all hand-mixed from scratch. The end results are ambrotypes or glass negatives. Later metal was introduced to the process to make tintypes. All these are one-of-a-kind, handcrafted images.

I use the wet-plate collodion process because I feel it allows me to get closer to the person I’m photographing. Because of the slow tempo of the shoot and the relatively long exposure times, the persons will have to sit still and concentrate. This seems to enable people to shed their learned mannerisms. They appear to forget how they should behave when being photographed; they drop all roles. Therefore portraits drawn on the plates reach something that is more than skin-deep.  I search for the humane in humans and for the stranger in us.