Why are there no Ferrotype Landscapes??

[htmlguru4242]

I've noticed that there are a lot of tintype (ferrotype) portraits, though I've NEVER seen a landscape or architechural shot.

Can the process be used for anything other than portrature or was it just not used?

 

[Shinnya]

Hi,

Though I am not sure about the actual historical details around the process. One of the advantages of Tintype is that you can process them right away, which was suitable for portraiture. Didn't a lot of photographers go a town to town to do this as a business in US? I would think that this was a part of the reasons.

Also, it is a lot easier to do it in a studio setting since you do have to carry your entire darkroom.

I would also think historically there weren't "landscape" or "architectural" photographers who would limit the potential of mass-production of their images... Wet-plate negatives are far more convenient for them for their use.

These are reasons that I can think of right now.

There are people who shoot landscape with tintype now. They carry their darkrooms with them where they go.

Dead Link Removed

Warmly,
Tsuyoshi

 

[Kerik]

You'll find a few wet plate landscapes on my Dead Link Removed. The process can be used for portraits, still lives, landscapes, architectural, etc. It's a little more hassle in the field because you need some sort of a portable darkroom, water, etc. Watkins' and O'Sullivan's work was done this way. They mostly did large glass negs with wet plate and then printed them in albumen, but other than the substrate, the process is mostly the same for tintypes, ambrotypes (positives on glass) or glass plate negs. My portable darkroom is a camper on the back of a pickup truck.

 

[JG Motamedi]

Do you mean historical or contemporary?

If contemporary, there are quite a few landscapes on "tin". Kerik (above), as well as John Coffer, and Nate Gibbons are but a few examples.

Historically most collodion landscapes, such as Watkins or O'Sullivan were made on glass to serve as negatives for albumen prints.

 

[htmlguru4242]

Ok, that answers my question. I was wondering why there weren't a lot in hte past; I wasn't aware of contemporary landscape stuff though.