Wet Plate Photography Explained

Wet plate collodion is one of the earliest forms of photography.  Frederick Scott Archer
has been credited with inventing this historic process back in 1851.  The process
became very popular worldwide, then quickly died off in the 1880's when a more
convenient way of taking photographs was invented.  In recent years there has been a
small revival of the process when a number of contemporary photographers decided to
go back to the roots of photography and embrace the old.  Making a wet plate can be
difficult, timely, costly, unpredictable, and requires a high degree of commitment.   The
images can be captured on glass (ambrotype) or on metal (tin type).  The word
Ambrotype is translated in Ancient Greek as "Immortal Impression".  Digital
photography of today relies on technology, wet plate photography relies on 160 year old chemistry and a bit of magic and some luck. 

A wet plate photographer makes a film base on a piece of glass or metal using
collodion, submerges it in a silver nitrate solution to make it light sensitive, and then
exposes the photograph usually in an old style wood bellows camera box and antique
brass lens from the 1800's.  The process is called wet plate because during the entire process the chemicals on the plates must remain wet and cannot be allowed to dry. 

The end result is a one-of-a-kind, archival object of art that will last many lifetimes. 
There are wet plates of Abraham Lincoln that look just as good today as they did a
century and a half ago.  It is thought that less than 1000 people worldwide carry on the
tradition of wet plate today. Many of those individuals are professional photographers at
the height of their career. 

Revised January 20 th , 2022
By Shane B. Balkowitsch, Ambrotypist, Bismarck, North Dakota