Some tintypes
“When a man is one of
a kind, he will be lonely wherever he is.”
Louis L’Amour
The first thing to say about tintypes is that if you were
rich, famous or notable you didn’t sit for one. They were strictly for the
common people, and just about everyone who posed remains anonymous today. The
same can be said for the photographers. We have plenty of information about studios
that offered tintypes but since they didn’t identify themselves on the print
but the paper casing, which was often discarded, here we are, over 150 years
after tintypes were invented with a huge but scattered record of our ancestors,
whoever they were.
Looking through America
and the Tintype (2009, Steidl) we find on one of the cover pages an advertisement
from Ormsbee’s First National Gallery offering eight carte de visites for 50
cents or 18 ferrotypes (aka tintypes) for the same price, all taken with the
“improved patent multiplying camera”. Consider the peculiarity of economics.
The carte de visite could be reproduced ad infinitum but for less than half the
price you could get a unique portrait, the only one that could ever
authentically exist. It says something about the business of photography in the
19th century that uniqueness had no intrinsic value.
From the New York
Times of June 27, 1875 comes a story about the Rogues Gallery held at
police headquarters; hundreds of tintypes of convicted felons. “Here are hard,
careworn faces, the dissipated look, the shrivelled up hands, the ragged clothes,
and the ‘hunted down’ expression of the eyes which a thief can never get rid
of.” The writer of the article looks at the murderers, pickpockets and
housebreakers and wonders where all the dashing criminals of popular fiction
might be among the faces. Rogues galleries weren’t so much records of crime as
poverty and wealthy tax evaders and wife killers were seldom expected to sit
for them. Here are two men who look like they wouldn’t be averse to a spot of
petty crime. Something about the glazed stare of the one on the right suggests
this wasn’t the first bottle they have shared today.
Also from the New York
Times, twenty years earlier on December 21 1865, comes these
recommendations for Christmas gifts:
“At FOUNTAIN's India Store, No. 858 Broadway, Chinese, Indian and
French fans, embroidered work, mull dresses, &c.;
At Dr. SARAH A. CHEVALIER's, No. 1,123 Broadway, a preparation for
promoting the growth of the hair, and for restoring it to its original color.
At BAXTER's Gallery, No. 812 Broadway, near Twelfth-street,
admirable ferrotypes;”
The idea of
giving a portrait of yourself as a gift sounds odd today, but that’s only
because we are familiar to the point of being anaesthetized with photography. In
1865 most people hadn’t sat for their portrait; ‘likeness’ was the more common
term. It was the new technology that was really fascinating.
Collectors
won’t normally give a second glance to a damaged carte de visite but scratches
and other flaws don’t detract from tintypes. It has something to do with the
authenticity of the image. No idea where this was taken but most likely at a
seaside resort. She looks like she is dressed for a Victorian holiday by the
sea.
Two actual
cowboys, the proof being they aren’t carrying guns. Both look somewhat
perturbed by the portrait sitting, as though this is the first time they have
done it. Compare them to the two below …
… More
relaxed, better dressed but they look like they come from the same part of the
world, which is to say not New York or Chicago. Notice how the man on the left
and the two above appear, at first glance anyway, a but rough around the edges
but look closer and you realize they’ve paid careful attention to their
appearance.
Most of the
photos here have two people in them. It’s a reminder that going to the
photographer was a social activity best done with friends, and it probably
wasn’t spontaneous. People planned for it and spent time preparing. They became
actors on a stage.
A good
example of a later tintype, probably taken around 1900, with the portrait
framed inside a card. As photographic processes go, the tintype lasted longer
than most, still popular in the 1930s 60 years after its invention. Why that
was is a small mystery. It’s original attractions, speed and cheapness, were
more or less redundant by the turn of the century when it was possible to
shoot, develop and print a photo in minutes and at much less cost. Maybe what
really attracted people to tintypes was that there could only ever be one of
them. Maybe in the age of mechanical reproduction people valued them as art.
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| TINTYPES |
One of the things that I love about tintypes is that it's a look at the common man. And if they had their picture taken at a local fair or event they may not have had time to prepare at all for the photo. So, we get the people unembellished, just as they were.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing I haven't figured out is how to store tintypes so they can be viewed without having to unwrap the from an acid-free paper folder each time. Let me know if you have any suggestions.