Collodion Wet Plate Process

The “wet plate collodion” photographic process is one of the earliest types of photography. Invented in the mid 1800’s, this process uses light sensitive chemicals poured over tin or glass plates by hand, exposed in camera while still wet, and then developed on site to produce an image.

Unlike the immediacy and ease of digital photography, this process is slow, purposeful, and creates a unique and tangible result. Each person who sits for a photo will experience a process that has changed our world in ways so profound, it is almost too much to consider.

Photographer Sally Mann was able to sum up my love of this process best when she said “When I was shooting with collodion, I wasn't just snapping a picture. I was fashioning... an object whose ragged black edges gave it the appearance of having been torn from time itself.”

Some of the plates below are taken from a 2023 NYSCA SCR Grant project which was written to use the wet plate process to photograph people who are making a positive difference in our community. See it here - Positive Exposures: Faces of Change in Niagara Falls