Before January is over I need to catch up on random wet plates from 2023. I left my full time job last April to focus on alternative photography full time. Within a few weeks I started to wonder how I ever had 40+ hours a week to work a full time job. The days go by and the weeks go by and soon the year is gone and another year has started.
So here is a collection of random wet plates I did during 2023. Somehow I never got around to posting them in my blog even though I did a digital photo and added them to my blog photo collection. The 6x6in tintype above is of a metal art owl. My wife sometimes like to weld up creations from random old junk. This owl guards my Summer office!
Here is another metal art creation (not one of my wife’s). A classic 5 pointed star which is on the wall of my Summer office.
It is hard to believe I did my first wet plate in the Fall of 2022. After a few months of practice I shut down for the Wisconsin Winter and started back up in April 2023. So in terms of actual capture time I have been making wet plates – Tintypes and Ambrotypes – for less than a year. Of course I have an advantage over other photographers in that I am a trained Chemist. There is a lot of applied chemistry in tintypes and Ambrotypes – from mixing various potions to making adjustments. So being a degreed chemist helped a lot!
Here is tintype of more metal art – in this case a butterfly sculpture. This sculpture spins away in our back year all year and is very beautiful (if you like rusty butterflies).
I occasionally find antique tintypes. Here is a tiny 2x3in tintype from the 1800’s Three dapper men pose in their Sunday best suits. At least I think they were Sunday best but just guessing as I know absolutely nothing about them or the tintype.
Next is a Ambrotype – wet plate on glass. This image is from the fountain in Riverside Park, Neenah. This is a 6x6in plate made on black stained glass. Most of my Ambrotypes are made in recovered antique glass. I find old windows and salvage the glass. It is a lot of extra work but I like the use of old glass to make 19th century era photos. I do sometimes buy new stained glass because it is hard to find old stained glass. I added a lead came border and copper hangers to finish off the image.
This is a burl on my 100+ year old box elder tree. Certainly a random wet plate! Not an exciting photo as I was doing a set of tintypes to experiment with development settings. But I still kind of like it. The tree is unfornatuely getting near the end of its life. We have already lost some of the big branches and it is only a matter of time before it lets go.
This is a BTS (Behind The Scenes) tintype of the lighthouse at Asylum Point. Wet plates need to a good wash after development and fixing. This removes any residual chemicals which might cause the plate to stain or darken with age. I usually do 5 washes with tap water followed by a final wash with distilled water (to remove any hardness from the tap water). It is a lot of work but worth the effort if I want to have my tintypes last forever!
The last two random wet plates are portraits. The first is a 6x6in tintype of one of my friends at Riverside park. The last is an Ambrotype self portrait. This is on 5x7in glass. I always wanted to be a cowboy…
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