Part of the fun with wet plate collodion is experimentation. Here is a plate of collodion orchids on stained glass. There is a lot of challenges to shooting on stained glass. But the final image is so beautiful! The first challenge is getting the exposure correct - just a matter of trial and error (which takes a lot of time). Next is developing the plate. Development is most challenging because the glass makes the image look less intense than on clear glass. The development process is done under red "safe" light and the blue glass looks strange. This plate could…

Here is a 6x6" tintype wet plate image of peonies. This photograph captures so many things that are the essence of a traditional photographic processes. These trademarks include: Narrow Depth of Focus: Antique lenses were designed to gather as much light as possible. Traditional photography methods are less sensitive to light than modern sensors so you needed a lot of light to create images. The consequence of high light gathering power is much less of the image is in focus (narrow focus). Our eyes operate in a similar way and our eyes see the world with only parts in focus.Long…