Week 1 - Wet Collodion process

Unfortunately I was not on this course when the Wet Collodion workshops took place, I was enrolled on to another course at the time. I am very interested in the process so I did my own research on it, although not having the specialist equipment available to carry out any practical work on this unit, I have included a brief history of Wet Collodion Process and some photographs I found whilst researching this practice.

The Process was invented by Frederick Scott Archer and introduced in the 1850's and by the end of the decade it had almost entirely replaced the Daguerreotype invented by Louis Daguerre, mostly due to the speed which Wet Plate could be exposed, seconds rather than minutes.

Wet plate is still used to this day with Photographers like Sally Mann choosing to use this format regularly.


                                          Sally Mann (Self Portraits 2006)