Tintype: George Eastman Stamps

I made these for fun and to do a consistency test. The George Eastman 3 cent stamps were scanned on a professional flatbed scanner, converted to black and white, and printed a little smaller than the 4×5″ negative size. I then enlarged them in the darkroom to an 8×10″ to see how well I could develop the plate. Sometimes I give myself little tests like, helps keep the brain fresh and curious about all aspects of life. I made a couple of these as a very short limited edition run. This particular plate was the first one I made. 

Tintype: barbed wire

Kathmandu, NepalScan of C41 neg >> Digital positive >> Tintype2009

One of the first images I created from a color negative. The original medium format Kodak Portra 160VC negative was scanned on an Imacon 848 drum scanner. The image had a bit of fogging because of the humidity and heat damage from traveling in Kathmandu, Nepal during monsoon season.

I was curious to see how well the color negative would translate into a tintype, and spent quite a long time converting the image to black and white trying to fix the film fogged area. Printed out the negative full-frame. It came out beautifully!

One of the things I love and hate about the Wet-plate collodion process is the volatility. Not literally how flammable the materials are but how you never really know what’s going to happen in the darkroom. It’s flexible yet simultaneously persnickity, sorta like a small child. I love the little bubbles that appeared on the top of the plate and the blue hue that came up where the collodion was thick!

Detail of right corner