Tintype Portraits of Photography Students Created on Their Discarded Film Canisters
Photographer David Emitt Adams experiments with unique metal bases in his experiments with tintype photography. Last week we shared a project in which he used abandoned tin cans found in a desert to create tintype photographs.
36 Exposures is another project of his that uses unconventional materials for creating old school photos. It’s a series of tintype photographs that were created using 35mm film canisters.
Seeing that these canisters played a crucial role in his students’ initial understanding of photography, Adams decided to upcycle them into photographs.
Each canister was flattened from a cylinder into a rectangle and then used as the metal base for tintype portraits of the students. Each of the resulting piece looks like a flattened film canister on one side, but flip it over and you’ll see a beautiful photograph created through the labor-intensive collodion process from the 19th century.
In addition to the tintypes themselves, Adams also created a gorgeous display case out of mahogany to store and show off the work. The case looks like a wooden box when it’s all packed up:
Open up the side, and you’ll see the collection of tintypes stored in wooden holders:
Lift up the top of the box, and the lid becomes a stand on which the portraits can be proudly displayed:
You can find more of Adams’ work over on his personal website.
Image credits: Photographs by David Emitt Adams and used with permission