Lunch & Learn: The History of Wet Plate Photography – 1851 to the 1880s

About The Program

Fine Art photographer and 50% of the Story featured artist, Angela Crews, will introduce you to the history of wet plate photography, and discuss not only the process itself – with all its dangerous chemistry – but we will also learn about the early contributors to the history of photography who used this process under the harshest of conditions. This process dates to before the Civil War, with some of the earliest photographers risking their lives to document this historic era. We move into the exploration of the American West with the geologic surveys and another group of adventurous photographers who mix rugged travel with the most dangerous of chemicals to document an expanding America.

Contemporary adopters of this process, including myself, continue to use the purist methods in mixing their chemistry, and have a wealth of creative applications and intentions for the modern Tintype.

About The Artist

In the expert hands of Fine Art photographer and historian Angela Crews, a vintage camera is a documentary photograph waiting to happen. Her creative drive, intellectual insight and keen eye masterfully combine to bring often-overlooked subject matter into the realm of archival significance.

Although unquestionably adept at every aspect of modern digital capture and post-production, it is Angela’s application of classic pictorial practices that truly sets her work apart. Following in the footsteps of historic photographers, Angela incorporates analog processes of photography’s past, including traditional medium and large format films and the wet plate collodion technique of the 1850s, to immerse viewers in authentic, authoritative representations of imagery as urgent as it is timeless. Her passions for documentary environmentalism takes shape in the man-altered landscape of the ever-changing American West.

A life-long student of photography, Angela earned both a Bachelors of Fine Art and a Masters of Fine Art from the acclaimed Savannah College of Art and Design. Her passion for photography extends into the modern classroom as well. Teaching an ongoing rotation of darkroom classes through the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center’s Bemis School of Art, she draws on her own extensive experience to mentor lensmen and novices alike.

Angela’s own Civilized Frontier, a collection which honors small-town Colorado and the changing American West, and Second Amendment, an exploration of the environmental destruction wrought by reckless gun owners, are just two long-term documentary projects that encompass her passions for research, history and exploration of the landscape.