What Is Wet Plate Photography? A Toronto Photographer's Complete Guide
Wet plate collodion photography is the photographic process invented in 1851 by Frederick Scott Archer in which a sheet of metal or glass is hand-coated with collodion, sensitized in silver nitrate, and exposed inside a large-format camera while the plate is still wet. The result is a one-of-a-kind silver image — a tintype if the substrate is metal, an ambrotype if it is glass. There is no negative, no digital file, and no way to make a copy. The plate that walks out of the studio is the photograph itself, and properly stored, it will outlast every digital format invented in the 174 years since.
I run one of the few commercial wet plate studios in Toronto, and clients ask me the same questions before booking a session. This guide answers all of them in one place, in the order they typically come up.
If you've already read this and want to book, my [Toronto wet plate sessions](/wet-plates) start at $300 per 8x10 plate. The rest of this post is for everyone who wants to understand the process first.
What is wet plate collodion photography?
Wet plate collodion is a 19th-century photographic process in which an image is captured directly on a plate of metal (tintype) or glass (ambrotype) coated with light-sensitive chemistry, exposed while still wet, and developed within about fifteen minutes — before the plate dries. It was invented in 1851 and dominated commercial portraiture from roughly 1855 until the introduction of dry plate gelatin film in the 1880s. Most of the photographs made during the American Civil War, much of Victorian-era studio portraiture, and a large portion of mid-19th-century landscape photography were made using this process.
Wet plate is what photography looked like before there was a way to separate the negative from the print. The plate you sit for is the plate you take home. There is no Photoshop, no second copy, no recovery if it's damaged. The image is the chemistry that hardened on the plate during exposure.
How is a tintype different from a normal black-and-white photo?
A black-and-white film negative is reproducible. One negative can produce ten prints, a hundred prints, or scans for digital use. The negative is the source; the print is the output.
A tintype has no negative. The plate is exposed in the camera and developed there in the studio, and the silver image that emerges is the original photograph itself. There is exactly one of it. You cannot order a second print, because there is no plate behind the plate. If you want two tintypes, two plates have to be exposed during the session.
The look is also different. Collodion is sensitive primarily to blue and ultraviolet light, which means warm tones (red, brown, skin) record darker than they appear to the eye, and cool tones (blue, ultraviolet-reflective whites) record nearly white. Skin photographs porcelain-pale. Eyes — particularly blue and green eyes — appear luminous. Freckles, scars, and skin texture show up dramatically. It is the look of every Civil War portrait, every Victorian studio sitting, every nineteenth-century landscape: not because of any aesthetic choice but because of the physics of the chemistry.
The wet plate process, step by step
Each plate in my Toronto studio follows the same four-step process used in 1855:
Step 1— Coating
A clean sheet of blackened aluminum (tintype) or clear glass (ambrotype) is held by one corner. Liquid collodion is poured onto the center and rocked to the edges by hand until the entire surface is covered with a thin, even film. This takes about ninety seconds. The collodion is the photographic emulsion — a viscous solution of nitrocellulose in ether and alcohol with bromide and iodide salts dissolved into it.
Step 2 — Sensitization
The coated plate is lowered into a bath of silver nitrate solution and left there for three to four minutes. During the bath, the silver reacts with the bromide and iodide in the collodion to form silver bromide and silver iodide on the surface — the actual light-sensitive compounds. This is what makes the plate able to record an image. It is also why the process is called wet: once the plate leaves the bath, it must be exposed and developed before the surface dries, or the image fails.
Step 3 — Exposure
You sit for the camera. The wet plate is loaded into a film holder, the holder is inserted into the back of a large-format camera, and the dark slide is pulled. Because tintype has an effective ISO of about 1, exposures are long — typically two to ten seconds depending on lighting. In my Toronto studio I use a combination of continuous lighting and modelling lights to allow shorter, more controllable exposures while preserving the soft, characteristic look the process is famous for. You hold still for the length of the exposure. Slight motion blur is part of the aesthetic — it's why everyone in nineteenth-century photographs looks slightly stiff.
Step 4 — Development
The plate is removed from the camera and developed by pouring an iron-based developer over the surface. The image emerges from black to silver in about thirty seconds. The plate is then rinsed, fixed in sodium thiosulfate (the same fixer used for traditional film), washed thoroughly in water, dried, and finally varnished with a sandarac and lavender oil varnish to protect the silver image. Total process time per plate, start to finish: roughly twenty minutes.
You are present for every step. Most clients say watching the image emerge from black to silver in their hands is the most memorable part of the session.
What is the difference between wet plate, tintype, ambrotype, and ferrotype?
These terms get used interchangeably online, but they refer to specific things:
- Wet plate collodion is the process — the chemistry and workflow used to make the image.
- Tintype is a wet plate made on a sheet of blackened metal (originally iron, today usually anodized aluminum). The black backing makes the silver image appear positive against a dark ground.
- Ferrotype is the historical name for tintype — the two words mean the same thing.
- Ambrotype is a wet plate made on a sheet of clear glass, backed with black velvet or black paint, which similarly makes the silver image read as positive.
- Wet plate negative is a wet plate made on glass and intentionally left clear-backed, used to print contact prints onto albumen or salted paper. This was the dominant landscape and portrait technique of the 1850s–1880s.
In my Toronto studio I primarily make tintypes. Ambrotypes and glass negatives are available on request for clients who specifically want them.
How long does a wet plate session take?
Plan for ninety minutes for a single-plate session, or two to three hours for multi-plate sessions. Each plate takes roughly twenty minutes from coating through varnish, plus setup, posing, and lighting time between plates. Most first-time clients book a single-plate session to see the process; clients who already know what they want from the format typically book three to five plates.
How much does a wet plate session cost in Toronto?
In my studio, sessions start at $300 per 8x10 tintype plate. A $100 deposit confirms the booking and is applied to your first plate. A $20 refundable chemistry-and-cleanup deposit is held during the session and returned afterward. Multi-plate sessions of three or more plates receive a 10 percent discount per additional plate. Mailing a finished plate anywhere in Canada is $25, insured. Group and family sessions are quoted individually — contact me for details.
For comparison: digital portrait sessions cost $100 to $1,500 depending on the photographer; a wet plate session costs more than digital because each plate is a hand-poured chemical artifact requiring darkroom facilities, $30+ in chemistry per plate, and twenty minutes of focused process time. The cost reflects materials and time, not markup on the image itself.
If you want to see the full pricing and book directly, my wet plate sessions page has the booking form.
Why does a tintype last 150 years?
Black-and-white silver-gelatin photographs degrade over fifty to one hundred years. Color prints fade in twenty to forty. Inkjet prints can fade in less than ten if exposed to direct light. Digital files require continuous format migration as software changes — the JPEG you save today may not be readable in 2125 without conversion.
A wet plate is a different physical object. The image is metallic silver — actual elemental silver atoms — bonded to a piece of metal or glass and sealed under a varnish that bonds molecularly to the surface. Silver does not fade. It can tarnish if exposed to sulfur in the air, but properly varnished and stored in an archival sleeve, a tintype is functionally permanent. The original wet plate portraits from the 1850s — Lincoln's tintype campaign portraits, Civil War portraits made in field studios — are still legible today, in many cases looking exactly as they did when they were made.
When I deliver a plate, it comes in an archival sleeve with a written care document explaining how to store it (avoid attics, basements, and direct sunlight; keep flat in a drawer or a wooden frame). With basic storage, your descendants in 2175 will be able to look at the plate as easily as you can.
Can a tintype be scanned or printed?
Yes. Every plate I make is high-resolution scanned at no extra cost, and a digital file is delivered alongside the original physical plate. The scan can be used to make modern prints, share online, or print at scale. But the scan is a copy of the photograph; the plate itself remains the unique original. Most clients display the original plate framed or in a presentation case and use the digital scan for everything else.
What should I wear for a wet plate session?
Wear solid colors, ideally darker tones. Avoid blue and white, because collodion's blue sensitivity makes those colors record nearly white in the final image — a blue shirt photographs as a white shirt, and a white shirt blows out completely. The colors that record beautifully are:
- Black, charcoal, dark gray
- Deep red, burgundy, oxblood
- Brown, rust, sepia
- Dark green, forest, olive
- Patterned tweeds, herringbones, and textured wools (the texture renders dramatically)
Bring two outfits if you're doing multiple plates and want variation. Avoid logos, busy patterns, and anything reflective. For hair, arrive with it the way you'd want to look on a normal good day — wet plate is unflattering to overly styled looks, but rewards natural texture.
Will my skin look good in a tintype?
Skin records very pale on tintype, with strong texture detail. If you have freckles, fine lines, scars, tattoos, or skin texture you'd normally retouch out of a digital portrait, expect them to show up clearly. Many clients book wet plate specifically because of this — the format is uniquely suited to honest, character-driven portraiture rather than the smoothed, retouched look of commercial digital headshots. If you want a smooth, retouched, idealized portrait, [book a digital headshot session](/booking) instead. If you want a portrait of how you actually look, with the depth and texture that an 1850s process captures, wet plate is the right choice.
Can wet plate be used for headshots?
Technically yes, but it's almost never the right tool. A working headshot needs to be delivered as a digital file, ideally same-day, in multiple variants (different crops, retouched/unretouched, color-corrected for your industry). Wet plate produces a single physical artifact per session, takes twenty minutes per frame, and costs $300 per plate. For LinkedIn, casting, corporate, or realtor use, you want a digital headshot session. For an art portrait, an heirloom commission, or a personal portrait that exists for its own sake — wet plate is one of the most distinctive photographic experiences available in Toronto.
How is wet plate different from 8x10 large-format film?
Both are large-format photography and both are offered in my Toronto studio, but they're different processes producing different results:
- Wet plate — handmade in front of you, no negative, one unique plate per exposure, costs $300/plate, looks like 1855 because the chemistry is from 1855.
- 8x10 large-format film — sheet film exposed in a view camera, hand-developed in a darkroom over the following week, scanned at high resolution, reproducible from the negative or the scan. $1,000 base session, looks like a modern fine-art portrait.
Some clients book both — a wet plate for the artifact, an 8x10 sheet for the print and the digital scan. They're complementary, not competing.
Where can I see examples of your wet plate work?
The wet plates page has a portfolio of recent Toronto sessions. My Instagram profile (linked from the homepage) have additional process work and behind-the-scenes captures from the studio. If you want to see plates in person before booking, that's possible by appointment.
How do I book a wet plate session?
Book directly at wet plates — the page has the deposit form and current availability. For private commissions, group sessions, gift commissions, or anything that doesn't fit the standard session structure, contact me and we can plan it together.
Sessions are by appointment only. Studio location and parking details are sent at booking confirmation. Wet plate is studio-only — the chemistry requires a darkroom and ventilation, so on-location sessions are not currently offered for this process.
A wet plate session is a slow, deliberate process — and that's the point. In a culture of infinite reproducibility, it's a chance to make one photograph that exists exactly once, in your hands, on a sheet of metal that will be readable in 2175. If that's the kind of portrait you want to have made, [I'd love to make one for you](/wet-plates).
