Wet plate collodion photographic process, which is used to make different image types, had thrived from the 1850s to the 1880s. The photograph is made not on paper but on a sheet of glass or metal and rather nasty chemicals including heavy metals and poisons are involved in the process.

The process has been re-surging of late and a number of workshops are offered at the Gold Street Studios in Melbourne and the Analogue Laboratory in Adelaide.

Mark Voce says that to create a photograph using the wet plate collodion process:

we first have to pour a solution of collodion on to a sheet or plate of glass or black metal such as tin or aluminium, after a few seconds the collodion mixture starts to go tacky at this point the plate is placed into a tank of silver nitrate. The silver nitrate sticks to the collodion creating a light sensitive coating on the plate. From here on in the rest of the process takes place in the dark under a orange safelight.

Mary McIntyre holds that many people might consider the act of taking a photograph as something quick, immediate etc. or even easy, momentary etc. which is suggested even by the use of the word, ‘taking’, as in something that already exists and is merely taken.

However, to her the act of taking a photograph constitutes a different approach: it is not taking, but ‘making’ something. It is the construction of an image.

This series appears to explore the neglected and dejected terrains, seeking out moments of odd grace and glanced beauty in settings that might customarily be considered ugly, uninspiring or of little value.

Nicholas Nixon, early architectural views of Boston and New York were taken from rooftops in the mid-seventies and were exhibited at New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape at the George Eastman House in 1975.

This is a great use of the the traditional (and by now archaic) tools of the medium - an 8x10 view camera, black-and-white film, contact prints when Boston was the city was in the process of transformation:

Nixon returned to this subject matter to photograph Boston’s changing urban landscape during the Big Dig highway development project. He photographed first with an 8x10 view camera again; then with an 11x14 view camera.

The invention of the digital camera has meant that photography has become an accessible art form for so many people. By the first decade of the 21st century film-based photography had become a niche activity.

One critical reaction to the new world of digital photography comes from Richard White, an Australian large format photographer based in Victoria He says that this new style of photography seems to be everywhere and it seems to be done to death. We are over saturated with imagery to the point that people don’t notice the good pictures any more.

White adds:

I am over the over saturated, over manipulated, over worked, over done vacuous pictures that pass for photography these days. The composite images that fool us without clarification, the jacket that was photographed blue, but changed to red because some geek has squeezed it into some software package that has been designed to deceive us with its clever tricks. I am over all the false colours that appear in images most of the time, because mainly people have been heavy handed with the slider and maybe they are trying to cover up their inadequate image.