I mixed my first batch of collodion in the autumn of 1885, in a converted tool-shed behind my uncle's apothecary in Rochester. The ether fumes burned my throat, the silver nitrate stained my hands a deep brown that would not fade for weeks, and every plate I poured came out a muddy, featureless smear. I was, by any reasonable measure, failing completely. Yet I could not stop.
A tintype is not a photograph — it is a chemical event, arrested in mid-decay.
Against permanence
The wet-plate process demands that you work while the chemistry is still alive — the collodion must not dry, the silver bath must be fresh, the developer poured within seconds of exposure. There is no negative, no reproduction, no second chance. The image is fixed to iron, not paper; it does not fade so much as it tarnishes, acquiring a patina that deepens with age.
The finished plate, dried and varnished, holds light in a way that silver gelatin never can. The highlights are not white but a pale gunmetal that shifts as you tilt the plate — the image lives in the metal itself, not on its surface. Hold a tintype at the wrong angle and it vanishes into mirror; hold it just right and the face stares back at you from inside the iron.