The act of taking a photo today is simple. Whether it be through a camera or a phone, one press of a button and a picture is taken.
It’s a process that has been refined over the years since the first cameras were invented in the 1800s. Over time, cameras got smaller, faster and easier to hold. The pictures they took got better and now the cameras in phones automatically change their settings to get the lighting just right.
While time has only made cameras more efficient, some photographers like Mark Cornelison prefer the slower methods of the past.
Cornelison works for the University of Kentucky as their university public relations and marketing photographer. Before this role, Cornelison worked as a full-time photojournalist.
During his time as a photojournalist, Cornelison worked for the Lexington Herald-Leader from 1993 to 2017. He said he always worked with the latest and best cameras. However, Cornelison has now moved his photography back in time.
Cornelison opened his own photography studio, Cornelison Tintypes, in November 2024. He uses an older method of photography developed in 1851 called tintype photography where photos are taken on sheets of metal.
Once taken, developed and fully varnished, Cornelison said the photos cannot be altered or edited in any way.
“It’s the most honest picture you’ll ever take,” Cornelison said.
Cornelison’s studio is part photo room and part chemistry set. He has tintypes strung up across the walls of people he has photographed in the past, and on the tables and on the shelves are bottles of chemicals Cornelison has been learning to mix for the tintypes.
Cornelison became interested in tintypes and older photography styles when he was a college student majoring in art education at Eastern Kentucky University. He said one of his professors brought in an old camera similar to a World War II era camera now in his collection, which is how he learned about the older method.
While it wasn’t until recently that he learned how to make tintypes, Cornelison said his art education background encouraged him to focus more on the artistic side of photography.
“It always stuck with me,” Cornelison said. “I was always interested in the old ways of doing it.”
As the cameras Cornelison used as a photojournalist moved from film to digital and got smaller and faster, Cornelison said his interest in that kind of photography faded while his affinity for the older styles grew.
“(Modern) cameras were so good, they were doing everything for everybody,” Cornelison said. “I went from every modern camera you could have to getting tired of that and going back and doing the old style.”
Cornelison said he struggled to find anyone in the state who could teach him about tintypes. It was the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and he also struggled to find people involved in that kind of photography until he found someone in Elgin, Illinois who was willing to teach him.
Determined to learn, Cornelison said he drove to Illinois for a single 14 hour long one-on-one workshop where he learned the entire process.
“I came back and I was on fire wanting to do it,” Cornelison said.
Cornelison Tintypes first opened during the pandemic and operated in Cornelison’s garage. He said whenever he had customers he would have to move his car and everything else out of the garage to set up the camera.
The photography method along with the setup beforehand was an involved process. Cornelsion said one tintype takes at least 15 minutes.
“Now, you take a picture and it’s on your phone immediately,” Cornelison said. “Back then you took a picture and if you could see it within 15 minutes of taking it it’d probably seem like black magic.”
Cornelison said he prepares each plate by pouring a chemical called collodion onto it and then placing the plate in silver nitrate, creating an emulsion that develops an image when exposed to light.
Cornelison’s work apron, which has his last name and the number 1851 printed on the front for the year tintype was developed, is dotted with stains from the silver nitrate. He said at the end of a day of shooting, his hands are also stained by the silver.
Once the emulsion is made, Cornelison said there are 10 minutes to take a picture with the plate before it dries. The flash needed to get enough light to capture the photo is so bright and powerful that the heat from it can be felt by the subject.
After the picture has been taken, Cornelison takes the plate to a dark room where another mixture of chemicals is poured onto the plate to reveal the image. The photo is not fully developed until it is placed in another tank of chemicals he called “fixers.”
“After it gets washed for about a half hour to 40 minutes, then dried, then varnished, it’ll last in your family for about 175 years,” Cornelison said.
Within the process, Cornelison said there is plenty of room for error, so when taking photos he is just as excited as the customer is to see the image come out.
“It’s so pure, it’s not like the stuff from today where it’s instant and everybody just over manipulates pictures,” Cornelison said. “They say this is the most photographed generation we’re living in, most photographs that will have nothing to show for it in 20 years . . . It’s all on somebody’s device or hard drive that you’re not going to maybe even be able to plug in at some point.”
When he was working at the Lexington Herald-Leader, Cornelison said he enjoyed taking photos on film because of the room for error in the process.
“There’s no better lesson than pulling the film out of the developer and stretching it out expecting to see all your pictures and the whole thing’s blank and you realised you shot it wrong . . . it’s all on you,” Cornelison said. “It challenges me and it’s fun and it’s what I love.”
Cornelison’s appreciation for older technology extends beyond photography. Rather than keep logs of his sales and customers on an excel sheet on a computer, Cornelison said he writes everything down in a leather notebook with a fountain pen.
More than his bookkeeping style, Cornelison said he also enjoys learning about traditional art and painting, things that, from his perspective, have more human involvement in the creation process.
“A lot of students and other photographers, they’ve all started shooting film again,” Cornelison said. He said he is happy that people are still using the older methods to enhance their skills.
Cornelison said his photography studio, his cameras and his photos aren’t just a way of preserving a way of taking photos, they are also a way of preserving his memory and life for his daughter, Elsie, in the future.
In his leather notebook, Cornelison said he also leaves notes about all the people he has photographed for his daughter to read when she grows up.
For every new camera Cornelison gets, he said he photographs his daughter first so that she won’t sell all the cameras when she inherits them.
“I always have this vision of somebody going through grandma or great grandma’s trunk and finding the photo and stuff,” Cornelison said.
Although the process of taking a photo today is fast and simple, Cornelison said it’s important to remember the origins and learn from the history.
If photos are meant for looking back at old memories and the past, Cornelison said physical photos are the best way to hold onto them. Rather than get lost in a computer file, photos like tintypes can be displayed, uncovered years later.
“I don’t want it (the method) to die, I want younger students and young photographers to know what brought them to where they are now,” Cornelison said. “I’m glad I shot with film and then went to digital and now I’m going backwards because now I see what’s happened to everything, good or bad.”
In the future, Cornelison said he wants to figure out how to move his cameras around more to shoot in locations other than his studio. He has also considered running workshops of his own to teach more people to take tintypes.
“To carry on that tradition to keep these cameras alive, that’s another part of it,” Cornelison said.
Chris Ledford • Feb 13, 2025 at 9:13 am
Love your work !!!