COLLODION WORK


The wet-plate Collodion process was described by J.D. Fowler in 1863 as “the foundation-stone of a new era.” A major technological development, the Collodion process allowed cheap manufacture of durable photographs with an optical clarity that far surpassed the Talbotype and challenged the Daguerreotype. It was invented in 1851, and fell out of general use with the release of the Kodak Box camera, the first roll-film camera, in 1888.


The process to prepare one plate, either of glass (for a negative) or of metal (for a positive), typically takes about 8 minutes. The collodion must be poured onto the plate and sensitized in a bath of roughly 10% Silver Nitrate solution before making the exposure. These exposures would usually take somewhere between eight seconds to four minutes. After exposure the plate must be developed and fixed before drying.


While most contemporary Collodion artists produce portraits, I instead designed a portable darkroom to make landscape photographs outside of the studio, drawing from a few historical and contemporary designs. Developing in the field is a very visceral experience and required a great deal of sensory presence. To stay true to historical practice, I did not use a light meter and instead used charts and educated guessing to select aperture and shutter speed.


These tintypes capture a contemporary moment, but by virtue of the process’s historicity, they can also be interpreted as historical documentation. In a sense they describe a reality different from that of the contemporary zeitgeist. Certain cultural artifacts are unavoidably embedded in the images, stuck in time. The only similar qualities between these and the historical Collodion image are those of the process and of the landscape.

Pinecone, 2012

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Front Range from County Road 4, 2013

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Mother with Cosmos, 2013

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Tree at Home, 2013

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Morning Glory, 2013

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Home, 2013

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Oregano, 2013

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Mulberry Street, 2012

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Pines Near Horsetooth, 2012

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Flood Damage, 2013

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