Workshops
In this wet plate collodion workshop led by Lisa Elmaleh, discover the captivating art of crafting tintypes, ambrotypes, and glass negatives through an engaging hands-on experience.
There are no available registration dates at this time.
This class will teach students how to create tintypes (positives on tin), ambrotypes (positives on glass), and glass negatives utilizing your vision, chemistry, and a darkroom. Guided by award-winning photographer Lisa Elmaleh, students will learn to properly expose and develop plates, mix chemistry safely, and prepare glass. Each student will work one-on-one with the instructor in the darkroom. All images will be made using large format cameras outside.
The goals of this class will be twofold: to learn the process of wet plate, and to put together a cohesive body of work during the week. Experimentation will be encouraged!
There is no prior wet plate collodion experience required—all are welcome. For intermediate and advanced collodion practitioners, this course will be an opportunity to dive into a body of work and improve technique.
There will be a field trip in which a portable darkroom will be used, as an example of how to take wet plate on the road. The “darkroom” in this case is a pot-growing tent outfitted with a dark cloth, utilized for chemical sensitizing and processing.
Students should bring their own 4″x5″ field camera, lens, tripod, and dark cloth. All other materials and chemistry will be provided.
This is an intensive process that can be physically demanding at times. There will be a lot of standing, and walking with large format cameras.
About Wet Plate Collodion Photography
Wet Plate Collodion Photography is a process that utilizes chemistry to create an image from scratch on metal or glass. The photographer is in charge of creating their image, by hand, from start to finish. Positives on metal, or tintype photographs, as they are more commonly known, are familiar – much of your civil war era portraits, up until the early 1900s, utilized this process in its creation. Many contemporary photographers utilize this process today as a conversation with the past. This process is responsible for many historic negatives on glass, as well – photographers like William Henry Jackson, Julia Margaret Cameron, Gustave LeGrey, and Lady Clementina Hawarden all utilized wet plate collodion for their glass negative work. Tintypes and ambrotypes can frequently be found in antique stores and flea markets.
If interested, we recommend this true 4×5 wet plate back from Niles Lund of Lund Photographics.
This Workshop is Sponsored by:
LundPhotographics is a leading producer and designer of high quality, hand crafted photographic gear made specifically for the wet plate collodion photographer. Built by collodion photographers for collodion photographers, our innovative, original designs make the process of wet plate photography easy, reliable, and efficient, allowing you to focus your attention on creating spectacular photographs. Visit LundPhotographics.com to learn more.
Niles Lund will be present for a portion of this workshop. He will assist with wet plate equipment needs and questions and is an excellent practitioner of the process.
All images copyright Lisa Elmaleh.
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Instructor: Lisa Elmaleh
Lisa Elmaleh (b. 1984, Miami, Florida) is an analog photographer, artist, and humanitarian. Elmaleh resides in Paw Paw, West Virginia, in a primitive cabin. Her most recent body of work, Promised Land/Tierra Prometida, focuses on the crisis at the border of the United States and Mexico, and since 2020, she has been immersed in the migrant justice community there. Elmaleh’s images have been exhibited nationally and recognized by the Guggenheim Foundation (2024), Creator Labs Photo Fund (2023), the Arnold Newman Prize (2022), the Puffin Foundation (2022), the Aaron Siskind Foundation (2011), and the Tierney Foundation (2007), among others. Her work has been featured by such publications as Harper’s Magazine, Smithsonian magazine, the New York Times, and National Geographic, and by CNN and NPR. Elmaleh’s photographs are in the permanent collections of the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach, Florida, the Ogden Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana, and the Wittliff Collections in San Marcos, Texas, among others. Her first monograph, Everglades (Zatara Press, 2016), documents the impact of climate change on the South Florida landscape.