{"id":79,"date":"2026-06-03T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redrabbitphoto.com\/journal\/?p=79"},"modified":"2026-06-03T15:24:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T15:24:54","slug":"tintype-self-portraits-and-lessons-learned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redrabbitphoto.com\/journal\/tintype-self-portraits-and-lessons-learned\/","title":{"rendered":"Tintype Self-Portraits and Lessons Learned"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The other day some of the folks at my day job were giving me a hard time because I still didn’t have a profile picture after a year and a half of working there. The truth is, I don’t really enjoy taking self-portraits, so I don’t have many photos of myself that would make a decent profile picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I decided if I was going to do it, I might as well do it the hard way and make a tintype self portrait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To get everything focused, I had my kid stand in for me while I composed the shot. Once focus was set, I marked the floor with tape, so I’d know exactly where to stand. Since there’s a bit of height difference, I ended up kneeling for the final exposure to put myself in the same plane of focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While making that plate, I learned a lesson that probably should have been obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve been working with a batch of developer that’s been around for quite a while. Two sessions ago it was still working fine. Maybe a little slower than fresh developer, but nothing that seemed concerning. I already had a new bottle on hand, but I figured I’d keep using the old stuff until it ran out or became noticeably sluggish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During my last wet plate collodion session, less than a week later, every plate came out completely blank. Solid black. I didn’t have time to troubleshoot, so I packed everything up and moved on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today the same thing happened again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every tintype plate was coming out blank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I checked the camera, lens, and shutter. Everything was working correctly. The plate holder looked fine. It didn’t seem likely that the silver nitrate bath or collodion was the culprit. Finally, I decided to stop being stubborn and mix up some fresh developer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Problem solved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next plate developed normally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What surprised me was how suddenly it happened. I expected the developer to gradually lose effectiveness over time. Instead, it was like a light switch. One day it worked, and a few days later it was completely useless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if you’re troubleshooting blank tintypes or wet plate collodion plates that show no image, don’t overlook the obvious. Sometimes the chemistry really is the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, I got my self portrait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plate was made on a 4\u00d75 metal tintype using a Kodak Anastigmat 128mm lens in a Kodex No. 1 shutter. Exposure was approximately one second at somewhere between f\/6.3 and f\/8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The collodion pour wasn’t my best work, and I think I probably overexposed and overdeveloped the plate. Still, for a profile picture and a bit of a joke, I’m happy with how it turned out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes the lesson is more interesting than the photograph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day some of the folks at my day job were giving me a hard time because I still […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":80,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-behind-the-scenes","category-process-technique","category-tintype-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redrabbitphoto.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redrabbitphoto.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redrabbitphoto.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redrabbitphoto.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redrabbitphoto.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/redrabbitphoto.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84,"href":"https:\/\/redrabbitphoto.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions\/84"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redrabbitphoto.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redrabbitphoto.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redrabbitphoto.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redrabbitphoto.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}