Collodion Wet Plate Photography

This process dates back to about 1850. It's like a tintype, only I use black aluminum. In the darkroom, I treat a black aluminum plate with collodion, then a silver nitrate solution, making it sensitive to light. Using a large format camera, I then expose the image. The plate is brought back into the darkroom and developed. Each plate is the actual piece that was in the camera.I love the imperfections in the final piece. The process uses fabulously hazardous chemicals. Each image is a one-of-a-kind hand crafted original.