Here is a 6×6″ 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 exposure blur: Because wet plate lacks light sensitivity the exposures can be very long. In this case it took about 6 seconds to capture the flowers. There was a very slight breeze blowing so the flowers moved a tiny bit and that movement caused some pleasing blur in the edges.
- Imperfections in the plate: All wet plates are hand made. I cut the plates from large stock, hand coat them with collodion and develop and wash them by hand. The plates are varnished with a mixture of frankincense and lavender oil by hand. I do try and make the best plates I can but inevitably some imperfections happen. Sometimes a lot of imperfections!
- Monochrome: Wet plates images are pure silver. Most have a black background although other colors can be used like stained glass. The colors of the original scene change as silver is sensitive to different light than our eyes so that blues will be white and greens will be black.
These things, and a few others, are what make wet plates so interesting and valuable. The “imperfections” are really just a reflection of our world. Nothing made with the human hand is perfect; every moment is unique. The combination of the chemicals and material I used, my movements as I coated and processed the plate, the slight motions of the flower and the fleeting nature of the light when I captured the image will only happen once in all of eternity!
This plate will be offered for sale at Prints For Sale
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