Tintype

[2]: 51–55  Tintypes enjoyed their widest use during the 1860s and 1870s, but lesser use of the medium persisted into 1930s[1] and it has been revived as a novelty and fine art form in the 21st century.

Later on tintypes were most commonly made by ferrotypists working in booths, tents, or the open air at fairs and carnivals, as well as by itinerant sidewalk photographers (with carts or wagons).

Because the lacquered iron support was resilient and later did not need drying, a tintype could be developed and fixed and handed to the customer only a few minutes after the picture had been taken.

They captured farming families in front of their new home (house portraits), emerging towns as well as the frontier landscape, for which large plates were used.

It began losing artistic and commercial ground to higher quality albumen prints on paper in the mid-1860s, yet survived for well over another half century, living mostly as a carnival novelty.

The glass was either of a dark color or provided with a black backing so that, as with a tintype, the underexposed negative image in the emulsion appeared as a positive.

Chemical treatment then reduced the crystals to microscopic particles of metallic silver in proportion to the intensity and duration of their exposure to light, resulting in a visible positive image.

[5][page needed][6] This ability to employ underexposed images allowed shorter exposure times to be used, a great advantage in portraiture.

Although it is a widely held belief James Ambrose Cutting might have named the process after himself, in actuality, "ambrotype" was first coined by Marcus Aurelius Root, a well known daguerreotypist, in his gallery as documented in the 1864 book The Camera and the Pencil.

[9] The tintype was essentially a variant of the ambrotype, replacing the latter's glass plate with a thin sheet of japanned iron (hence ferro).

[10] His book and the introduction of low cost variants known as "Gem ferrotypes" and the invention of the photo booth in 1888, helped to sustain the tintype's longevity.

[14] The contemporary photographer Victoria Will created a series of tintypes of Hollywood stars at the 2014 and 2015 Sundance Film Festivals, including portraits of Anne Hathaway, Nick Cave, and Ewan McGregor.