What is a vintage photographic process?
We use the word “vintage” to describe something from the past. The first photographic processes were developed in the 1800’s, also known as the Victorian era. So we use “vintage” to describe photo processes from this era. All these are “analog” photography and mostly based on the reaction of silver with sunlight.
Most of our art is created using four vintage / Victorian era processes:
- Wet Plate Collodion Photography, we use both metal plates or Tintypes, and glass plates known as Ambrotypes
- Silver Salt Printing – the first photography negative & reproduction process. It is the basis of modern film photography
- Silver Collodion Printing – A dry plate collodion process for making copies of Ambrotypes and other negatives
- Cyanotype Printing – A print process based on Iron instead of silver
An Example of Each Process
Wet plate collodion was the first truly commercial photography process and is still used by hundreds of photographers today. I use two type of wet plate collodion and you can learn more about them at: What is Tintype? and What is Ambrotype?
Salt printing, or silver salt printing, is the forerunner to modern film photography. I use produce silver salt prints on paper from a variety of film, wet plate and digital camera negatives: What is Salt Printing?
Collodion Silver Printing is a POP (Printing Out Process) printing. Collodion silver is used to print a full sized negative on paper, metal and glass. It uses a collodion carrier similar to wet plate collodion: What is Silver Collodion Printing?
The last processes we use is cyanotype. Cyanotype is another printing process – I use mostly paper but you can print on glass. The difference is cyanotype uses Iron salts instead of silver. The iron gives cyanotype its unique blue tones: What is Cyanotype?
Short History of Vintage Photographic Processes
It was known at the beginning of the 19th century that certain salts of silver would react with sunlight. By “salts” we mean silver combined with iodine or bromine or chlorine. For example, silver chloride will turn black when exposed to sunlight because metallic silver is formed.
People knew about lenses and thought about the potential for making a photograph but no one knew how to actually do it. In 1826 Nicephore Niepce managed to produce the first permanent photograph. His assistant, Louis Daguerre, then created the first commercially viable process – the daguerreotype process. While usable, daguerreotypes took a long time to create an image (several minutes) and used dangerous chemicals.
Around 1830, Henry Fox Talbot developed the salt print process. His process used a camera to create a “negative” image which could then be duplicated on “salted” paper. The salt print process is the basis for most analog processes after including modern film photography.
Around 1851 Frederick Scott Archer invented the collodion process. This process revolutionized photography. The advantages were short exposure times (just a few seconds), lower cost, higher resolution and elimination of the nasty chemicals used to make daguerreotypes. Wet plate collodion dominated photography for 40 years and eventually gave way to dry plate and film photography.