How does it work?
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Tintypes are kind of like old-timey Polaroids, in the sense that they are one-off (you don’t create a negative that you then print) and “instant.” This is called a “direct positive” — one of a kind, and created directly in the camera.
**The funny thing about tintypes is that they are actually, technically, negatives.** The metal plate that a tintype is made on is dark in color, which makes the light-sensitive substance that forms the image appear to be a “positive” image instead of a negative.
If you are interested in the actual mechanics of how cameras work….
The beginning of the tintype process is similar to other forms of analog photography, in many ways:
– Find a material that is reactive to light (like film in a typical analog camera). In the case of tintypes, metal plates are coated with special chemicals known as a “collodion emulsion.”
– Put your light-reactive material into a camera.
– Open up the camera lens to allow light in for a certain amount of time. This is the “exposure.” The camera lens allows light to hit the light-reactive material. The lightest spots in the scene make the light-reactive material very dark, and the darkest spots in the scene stay light.
So now, you have a piece of metal with a “negative” image on it (dark parts are light, and vice versa).
Here’s where tintypes are different than most analog photography. With a typical film camera, at this point you’d use the _negative_ that you created to produce one or more _prints._
With a tintype, you don’t use a negative to create a print. The image is created directly on the metal plate:
– Put the metal plate into another chemical, a “fixer.”
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