Wetplate collodion tintype portraits

Authentic, analogue photographic magic in a phoney digital age.

Founded in 2016 by Tasmanian artist Phillip England

Salamanca Arts Centre studio
Hobart, Tasmania.

Black-and-white portrait of a woman and bearded man standing together, with the woman’s hand resting on his shoulder.

Award winning short doco about my tintype practice by Lara van Raay

Black-and-white portrait of a woman with long, wavy hair wearing a dark top.

Tintype Portraits

Sit for your tintype portrait or arrange one for someone you care about.

A unique and everlasting portrait that is the antithesis of the modern and ephemeral digital photograph. 

Made using the traditional way without a modern flash.

“When you have to have to concentrate on your own gaze for 15 seconds you cannot pretend to be someone you are not”

Guaranteed AI free! 

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GIFT VOUCHERS‍ ‍

Black-and-white historical photograph of men assembling a large early airplane or aircraft in an open field.

Learn

Learn analogue photography by doing.

wetplate collodion tintype‍ ‍

large format film photography‍ ‍

35mm analogue photowalk‍ ‍

Framed vintage black-and-white wedding portrait of a bride in a long veil and gown standing beside her reflection in a mirror.

Heirloom Tintypes

Turn your cherished family photographs into tintypes: unique, permanent & even more precious.

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Black-and-white collage of vintage floral arrangements featuring lotus pods, seed heads, dried flowers, and leafy stems in vases.

Tintype Artworks

Wetplate collodion tintype still lifes and landscapes available to purchase

GALLERY

Why tintypes?

Collodion tintype photography, invented in the 1850s, involves exposing blackened metal plates coated with light sensitive, silver-based emulsion in a large format bellows camera.

Each tintype is a unique, permanent, one of a kind image object, with no intermediate negative or file used in its production.

Tintypes exemplify a return to hand crafted image making.

Their beguiling materiality is rarely encountered in modern photography.

Why Tasmanian Tintype?

  • Made the traditional way - NO FLASH

    “When you have to have to concentrate on your own gaze for 15 seconds you cannot pretend to be someone you are not.”

  • Made using a 100 year old camera.

  • Operating out of a dedicated TINTYPE STUDIO in the beautiful SALAMANCA ARTS CENTRE

  • OVER 10 YEARS crafting tintype portraits.

Why black & white?

“When you photograph someone in colour you are photographing their clothes but when you photograph someone in black & white you are photographing their soul.”

Collodion tintypes, like all early photographic techniques are monochrome unless they have been subsequently hand coloured.

Some of my classics

Cover of Island magazine issue 153 featuring a black-and-white portrait and articles on Australian culture, history, and politics.
Black-and-white portrait of a bearded man wearing a wide-brimmed cowboy hat and dark clothing.
TasWeekend magazine cover featuring a black-and-white portrait of musician Charles Woolley with the headline “Face the Music.”
Black-and-white close-up portrait of a woman with short hair and a subtle smile against a dark background
Black-and-white close-up portrait of a bearded man wearing a knit cap and plaid jacket.
Vintage black-and-white close-up portrait of a woman with short, side-swept hair.
Black-and-white portrait of an older man wearing a patterned collared shirt.
Black-and-white portrait of two heavily tattooed people in punk-style clothing and jewelry
Black-and-white portrait of two long-haired women, one wearing a wide-brimmed hat, with a cat in the foreground
Black-and-white portrait of a bearded man in a suit playing a banjo.
Vintage black-and-white portrait of a bald man wearing a collared shirt
Black-and-white close-up portrait of a bearded man with swept-back hair and dramatic side lighting