i am kind of stuck in hybrid mode these days
part of me is stuck in about 1890 and the other part in 2013 ..
recently i have been hand coating metal and glass plates with liquid emulsion
some were exposed and developed in a special developer to convert the negative image to a positive
( tintypes and ambrotypes ) with wet plate images this is done with collodion spiked with certain salts
which then bind with silver nitrate and are developed …this sort of thing was invented in the late 1850s early 1860s …
what i am doing was invented 20 years later. instead of the silver nitrate ( and salts ) being suspended in a slowly drying
celluloid ( collodion ) that needs to be processed into a photographic image right away when still “wet”, i am using the silver-stuff
that has been suspended in clear gelatin. they are called DRY plates … it is the same silver gelatin liquid that i coat on paper ..
the same emulsion you can make yourself if you want ( it really is easy enough for a college student to do .. i did as a 20 years old at least )
and it is really easy to purchase from a store in a bottle ( liquid light, black cat, se-1 &c ) …
in around 1900 someone discovered a way to invert the image to make a positive … street photographers capitalized on this making instant portraits and post cards ( developing tank under + attached to the camera ) … and you can still do this today with the rockland colloid tintype kit
that is what i am using at least because the recipe for the developer is an unknown …
some plates are tintypes i made, some ambrotypes
and some are hand colored ( using photoshop )
