Fontaine Hernandez’s studio, Brouhaha, on Fillmore and Haight Streets in San Francisco, is a unique space that offers tintype photography services. This antique process, invented in the 1850s, was used by Civil War soldiers to send images home to their families. Hernandez, the owner, values the collaborative nature of the process, which she calls the “magic” of tintype.
Tintype Process
The process involves loading a sheet of metal, bathed in silver nitrate, into a large-format camera and photographing the subject. The plate is then developed in a makeshift darkroom and treated with a chemical fixer. The result is an underexposed negative image, which is then dried and varnished to prevent oxidizing and scratches.
Customers are often in awe when they see their likeness on a thin metal sheet, Hernandez says. She tells them, “That’s just [the] 1800s you.” With a recent rise in interest for more physical and retro photography techniques, Hernandez is hopeful that tintype has a future.
Original reporting: Mission Local — read the source article.
