RE: Sources for wet plate collodion chemicals

I have over a 100 tintypes that I picked up on eBay over the past couple of
years and they run the gamut from a piece of metal that looked like it was
sized with a meat cleaver with a crummy image to stunning portraits--most
were from the same 20-40 year period. You can see this in tintype photo
albums with the images changing in quality like a roller coaster over time.
My hunch continues to be that the differences are primarily quality issues
with the chemistry and practitioner.

You may already be aware the term "tintype" was pejorative in the 19th
century. It implied a hastily made image of low quality--usually by an
itinerant photographer. Whether this is "true" or simply a campaign by the
portrait artists is up for argument. There has been some written on this
topic. The best I can tell from the images I come across is similar to my
statement above. Some were created by very good photographers who knew their
craft and others were photographer-hacks. Some things never change :-)

BTW, I find it ironic that these images are one of the most expensive types
of images to reproduce today.

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Best, Dianne [mailto:dbest@hydro.mb.ca]
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 6:58 AM
To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
Subject: RE: Sources for wet plate collodion chemicals

Do you think so??? The difference in image quality is quite striking.
The best ones rival the best quality photographic paper.

Perhaps it had something to do with better QC in the chemicals that were
available in later years.

I don't know what else could account for such a dramatic change.

Dianne

-----Original Message-----
From: D. Mark Andrews [mailto:mark@dragonbones.com]
Subject: RE: Sources for wet plate collodion chemicals

Diane,

With respect to the difference in quality of the images you have seen
most likely has more to do with the quality control of the individual
photographers then advances in the technique.
Received on Tue Aug 30 08:36:40 2005