This remarkable video from the guys at Darkroom Baltimoresun looks at an interesting old development process known as wet plate as demonstrated by John Milleker Jr..
According to Milleker “The Wet Plate Collodion process was invented in the late 1840’s by Frederick Scott Archer and then introduced in the early 1850’s. Compared to the previous process, the Daguerreotype, wet plate was a much easier and safer process. You also couldn’t make prints or copies of Daguerreotypes like you could with an Ambrotype, which is Wet Plate Collodion on glass. It was widely used through the Civil War and up until about the 1880’s, and even then wet plate stuck around until the early 1900’s as a nostalgic process at vacation destinations. Sort of like our ‘Old Time Photos’ of today.”
As you can see despite being “a much easier and safer process” than what comes before it – compared to what we now have on the digital age – this is still a very complex process requiring patience and knowledge as well as some skill and quite a few materials and equipment.
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