My First Tintype: How I Fell in Love With Wet Plate Photography

I made my first visible tintype on March 12, 2011 — and even though it was rough around the edges, it sparked something that's kept me hooked ever since.

Before I found tintype photography, I spent years shooting 35mm film with a Minolta Maxxum 3000i. Back in the late '90s and early 2000s, you could still drop off a roll of film at Walmart and pick up printed photos (and your negatives) a few days later. I loved the process, even as digital photography started to take over.

I dabbled in digital for a while — early point-and-shoots, Photoshop filters, HDR experiments — but none of it ever felt truly satisfying. Even though my day job was (and still is) rooted in technology, I kept finding myself pulled back toward more tactile, traditional processes.

Discovering Wet Plate Collodion

Around 2009 or 2010, I went down a YouTube rabbit hole trying to see if I could ressurect an old family camera. That’s when I stumbled onto a video by Quinn Jacobson about the wet plate collodion process.

He said something like, “If you love history and don’t mind working with dangerous chemicals, this might be for you.”
I thought: That’s exactly for me!

From there, it snowballed.

I joined the old Collodion.com forums and started asking a million questions. I bought a copy of John Coffer’s "The Doer’s Guide to Wet Plate Photography", a handwritten, Xerox-copied manual that came with grainy old DVDs converted from VHS tapes.

The more I read, the more it felt like I had found something I didn’t even realize I was searching for.

Building My First Darkroom in Old Hickory, Tennessee

At the time, we lived in a small house in Old Hickory, TN, just outside Nashville.

My first "darkroom" was black plastic sheeting stapled to the basement ceiling, a folding table, and a red fluorescent light from Home Depot.

I built my own silver tank and fixer trays out of acrylic. I mixed my own collodion ("Old Workhorse" recipe) and japanned my own metal plates.

I even converted an early 1900s Kodak Brownie box camera into a crude plate holder — recommended by John Coffer as a good, first test camera.

It was messy, it was smelly, and half the time I wasn’t sure if I was ruining the chemicals or the equipment.

But I loved every second of it.

March 12, 2011: The First Image Appears

After a lot of blown-out plates and overexposures, I finally realized the Brownie’s simple lens didn’t need a 30-second exposure.

Ten seconds was enough.

On March 12, 2011, standing in that makeshift basement darkroom, I watched my first real tintype image appear in the developer tray.

It wasn’t perfect.

It was faint and scratchy.

But it was there — and it felt like opening a door into another world.

From Basement Experiments to Backyard Portraits

After that first success, I roped in friends from Music City Improv to come sit for me behind the house.

We made messy plates, laughed at the mistakes, and kept experimenting.

In 2012, I upgraded to a Century Studio 8x10 large format camera, a serious leap forward from my homemade setups. Around the same time, we moved to Franklin, Tennessee, where I started setting up outdoor shoots under natural light.

Eventually, I added Speedotron strobes so I could shoot indoors — no more worrying about Tennessee’s unpredictable weather during a session.

Even though I had started out photographing old buildings and still lifes, over time, I found myself drawn more and more toward portraiture. There’s something about working with people — capturing a real expression, a real moment — that felt more alive than anything else.

Fifteen Years Later, Still Hooked

Now, nearly 15 years after that first plate, I’m still at it.

I still mess up. I still get frustrated.

But I also still have moments where the chemistry, the light, and the subject all come together in a way that feels almost timeless.

That's what keeps me coming back to tintype photography.

It’s slow. It’s unpredictable. It’s incredibly rewarding.

And I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.

Curious About Tintype Photography?

If you’d like to experience the magic of wet plate collodion firsthand, you can book a session here or learn more about how tintypes are made.

I’d love to help you create something timeless — one plate at a time.