ABSTRACT
Frederick Scott Archer, an English sculptor, introduced the wet collodion process for making glass negatives in 1851. It was 20 times faster than previous methods and paper prints could be made from the glass plates, allowing for many copies to be made from one original. e drawback: the photographer had to sensitize the plate, expose and develop before the plate dried. is means photographers had to carry all of the chemicals, the glass plates and a darkroom with them where ever they were photographing. Not exactly the easiest task. e introduction of the gelatin dry plate in the 1870s put an end to the wet plate as the process of choice for working photographers. However, today, this process is seeing a huge resurgence in use. is chapter will cover ambrotypes (positives on glass), ferrotypes (positives on metal, usually called tintypes) and negatives on glass.
