I recently came across of contemporary practitioners of tintype (ferrotype) photography: Robert Benson (via Feature Shoot) and Robb Kendrick (via Exposure Compensation).

I will have to admit that looking at these “modern” tintypes left me a bit disappointed: I know these photos are hard to produce, and as objects they’re quite nice, but in terms of the actual photography I have the feeling that they rely too much on the fact that, well, they’re tintypes - something which appears to be fairly common when you look at those kinds of alternative processes. The same is true for a lot of “toy camera” photography: No, blurry photos and heavy vignetting does not automatically guarantee great photos.

I’m always looking at the images first, and then (maybe) at the process.

The image above was not taken by the aforementioned practitioners. It’s a photo from my own collection, taken by an unknown photographer, I don’t know when. And this is really what the little metal sheet looks like, with it scratches and chipped emulsion.