This is a “guest post” from my analog photography site SunandSilver.photo While I love digital photography, I also have been doing a lot of analog photography including tintypes, Ambrotypes, gold and silver salt prints and cyanotypes. I think the principles I laid out for Sun and Silver.photo are the same as my digital photography so I shared them here too!

Tintype principles for a new year. I had so much fun in 2023 making 19th century photography – tintypes, Ambrotypes, salt prints and cyanotypes. I think 2024 is going to be an amazing year. Often people choose New Years Day for resolutions but I would rather talk about core beliefs or principles.   

Resolutions are usually a set of “do” or “don’t do” activities. Lose weight, exercise more, make more portraits are just a few examples. So instead of a list of things to do, or things to change, in the coming year I would rather reinforce the “whys” of what I am doing.   If you understand the basic drivers of what you are doing the individual activities will naturally follow.

So here are my basic principles of why I create tintypes and other visual arts…

• I create to honor the Creator of everything
• I want to make portraits that capture the inner “spark” we all have
• I want to share images that show joy and love in a world where ugliness seems to get the most attention
• I want to build relationships with my clients and models – it is not the final image that counts, but rather the moments we share together

I create to honor the Creator of everything: All of the things I have learned in my life, especially my career as a scientist, show me very clearly that everything in the universe was created by God. Our Creator took random chaos and made order and life. So when I create something, when I follow the example of my Creator, I honor my Creator.  

I want to make portraits that capture the inner “spark” we all have: All people have a spark of life in them. This spark animates our bodies and our minds and is a part of the Creator. A good portrait can capture a bit of that spark for others to see.

I want to share images that show joy and love in a world where ugliness seems to get the most attention: The “news” is almost always bad! People seem to be drawn to bad news or ugly behavior. I want to show that there is love and beauty in the world. I want my images to be positive and uplifting; to tell inspiring stories. 

I want to build relationships with my clients and models – it is not the final image that counts, but rather the moments we share together: I think the common thread in all of my photography is rewarding interactions. I do landscape and still life photos but enjoy people photography more than anything else. The biggest appeal of tintype, all wet plate methods, is that they are slow. You naturally take more time setting up a photo when it takes 15 minutes then when you crank out 15 frames a second. Because of this a tintype image will have more memories attached. The tintype is a reflection of the time we spent together, our conversation, our planning. 

I hope to do lots more portraits and create a lot of inspiring images in 2024! If you like my principles why not contact me to start a discussion of your portrait or project? 

Featured photo is “Santa Heading Home” a 5x7in tintype. You can see more of my tintypes in my Portfolio

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