Ambrotype and Wet Plate Collodion – Chemicals and Materials

Ambrotype is a 19th-century photographic technique based on the wet plate collodion process, producing a unique image on a glass plate. The silver negative image, when viewed against a dark background, appears as a positive, creating the characteristic ambrotype.

In this category, you will find chemicals, ready-to-use solutions and materials for wet plate collodion and ambrotype photography, including collodion, silver nitrate, collodion salts, developers, fixers, varnishes and accessories required for working with glass plates.

The wet plate collodion process requires the plate to be prepared, sensitised, exposed and developed before the collodion dries. This is what gives the process its name and requires the photographic plate to be processed immediately before and after exposure.

Wet plate collodion can be used not only to create ambrotypes, but also tintypes and collodion negatives. Its distinctive image quality, exceptional detail and the physical presence of the glass plate make wet plate collodion a process still used today in contemporary fine-art photography and in the reconstruction of historical photographic techniques.