Tin Questions Chad Shryock

Is there a place for collodion in today's world of photography? This week's guest thinks so and decided being a teacher, FAA drone pilot and professional commercial photographer wasn't enough. While familiar with Victorian photography and the works of famous Civil War photographers, Jon Haverstick decided to reach out to modern day wetplaters during the COVID-19 shutdown and developed a love for this vintage process. Sit back and learn about Jon's work on sci-fi western promos, spirit photography and what it's like to hold photographic history that's been to the moon and back.

Let's mix this batch up - engineer dad + a creative background in music, painting, film photography + love of the old and vintage items + a chance trip to a Gettysburg tintype studio. What comes out of this mixture is Chicago based photographer Jennifer Froula Weber. Listen in as we talk about her dreamy wetplate collodion images, her creative process and how Berber the bear became her first sitter.

In ages long past, before the dawn of the smartphone and the instant image, a different kind of magic unfolded. Photographers embarked on quests with cumbersome contraptions of brass and glass. They wrestled with this strange alchemy, capturing the fleeting moments of a world yet unfrozen.

Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.

We didn't quite make it to that place with collodion, but we came close. In this episode, we talk to another pioneer - a Godfather of sorts - who continued this quest and joined a small fellowship of others seeking out the ways of wetplate.

That's enough reference to the Tolkien classic, for now, but Brian Scadden of Carterton, New Zealand, has a lot to talk about when it comes to collodion and how being isolated from the rest of the wetplate world didn't stop him becoming a dedicated practitioner and teacher of the process.

So grab your pipe, settle in by the campfire, and prepare to hear how the search for the wisdom of collodion turned into an obsession rivaling that of Gollum.

In this week's episode, we get to talk to a relative newcomer in the collodion world that's already making a name for herself. Currently residing in Fargo, North Dakota, Kary Janousek wanted to learn more about the process after seeing it first hand for a set of promotional images for her other business - vintage hat repair and sales. Kary shares more on her millinery work and how a love of vintage things brought her to wetplate.

Growing up, I was fascinated by folk tales about Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan and other characters from American history. In this season 3 opener, I finally tracked down the Johnny Appleseed of wetplate, John Coffer. Making an 11,000 mile journey across the United State in a horse drawn wagon, John made his way town to town, figuring out the collodion process in the mid 1970's and capturing authentic ferrotype images at every stop. John is a great story teller, so get comfortable and listen to this larger than life character talk about traveling the country, life on the farm and teaching collodion as a wetplate pioneer.

Has it really been this long? I know, I said a bonus episode was coming in a few weeks after the last episode. But something special like this needed to marinate for a little while. While this episode includes a who's who in collodion, it's really about the life and influence of one California man named Will Dunniway. I've collected some of his closest friends, family and students to introduce the Tin Questions audience to another pioneer in the process who, unfortunately, left us too soon.