Growing up, I was fascinated by folk tales about Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan and other characters from American history. In this season 3 opener, I finally tracked down the Johnny Appleseed of wetplate, John Coffer. Making an 11,000 mile journey across the United State in a horse drawn wagon, John made his way town to town, figuring out the collodion process in the mid 1970's and capturing authentic ferrotype images at every stop. John is a great story teller, so get comfortable and listen to this larger than life character talk about traveling the country, life on the farm and teaching collodion as a wetplate pioneer.

Has it really been this long? I know, I said a bonus episode was coming in a few weeks after the last episode. But something special like this needed to marinate for a little while. While this episode includes a who's who in collodion, it's really about the life and influence of one California man named Will Dunniway. I've collected some of his closest friends, family and students to introduce the Tin Questions audience to another pioneer in the process who, unfortunately, left us too soon.

In this season's finale of Tin Questions, I get to sit down with a chemist turned wetplater turned wetplate chemical supplier, Brian Cuyler. Starting out in collodion at the beginning of the recent renaissance period, Brian used his background in chemistry to investigate some of the historical recipes that we all use and tweak them to produce collodions specialized for different situations. Seeing a gap in the market for these craft collodions, Brian started his own wetplate chemical supply business, UV Photographics. Listen in and hear why you should always "Respect the Chemistry!"

We all had to start somewhere and I thought it would be good to hear from somebody new in this episode of Tin Questions. I met Andrew Pignatelli recently while another traveling tintypist was passing through a local brewery. With little background in photography and even less in collodion, Drew became intrigued by seeing the wetplate work of others online and decided to start Golden Tintype, based in Golden, Colorado. Listen in as we try to find out why people are still getting into collodion in 2023.

Have you ever had a subject that seemed too big to capture in a way that accurately showed the scale and majesty of how it truly exists? My next guest had a big dream that started with a chance finding of a 1907 ultra large format camera - weighing in at 70kg and 2 meters long, this "baby" camera was just what was needed to kickstart a dream project, pulling a well known videographer into the world of collodion. Growing up in the shadows of the Dolomites in northern Italy, Kurt Moser started big and stayed big, taking 24" by 24" landscape and portrait ambrotypes with his newly found camera and the help of his production partner, Barbara Holzknecht. Listen in as Kurt talks about the challenges of large scale photography using the collodion process in the mountains and in his quaint Italian atelier.

Inspiration comes in many forms. Sometimes it's a guy making an 11,000 mile journey across the US in a horse drawn wagon taking tintypes. Originally from England, Texas transplant Adrian Whipp learned about John Coffer's trip and decided he wanted to do the same, minus Brownie the horse. Looking for a career change, Adrian decided to put together a mobile tintype studio that he could take anywhere and started Lumiere Tintype Photography. Listen in as we chat about slinging tin in Texas and why 15,000 images captured is only a start.

It was once said that "all roads lead to Rome". If you were to ever to trace your genealogy in the learning of wetplate collodion, it is very likely that these roots wind their way back to New York state. This week's episode is a little different than most in that I have not one, but two guests that share their experience and learnings with others all over the globe. France Scully Osterman and Mark Osterman have been involved with researching, practicing and teaching a multitude of historical photographic processes for decades. I'm really grateful to these two for sitting down and sharing some great stories about their impact in the world of collodion.

I recently went camping and got ate up by mosquitos. My next guest, Austrian wetplate photographer Markus Hofstätter, lives in a town known for these pesky insects. Not only is Markus a well known European photographer, he is also a great resource to the wetplate community, sharing his knowledge, doing equipment reviews and similar to "Tin Questions", conducting the occasional interview. Hear how a love of shooting pool with both sticks and cameras eventually turned into a desire to slow down and create beautiful images using a historic process.

This week's guest is a fellow wetplater that has shared her portraits with millions of viewers on TV. Currently working as a Director of Photography for Paramount+, Sarah Coulter pitched an idea to capture the cast of the hit show "Yellowstone" using the wetplate process. After these successful images, she then turned her camera towards getting period accurate images of the cast for the follow on hit "1883". Afterwards, she was surprised to learn that these images would be a part of the series opening credits. Listen in to Sarah talk about how she got started in the wetplate and what it takes to use this historic process in modern media.

We're not talking about ruby slippers on Tin Questions, but we might have a word about ruby bellows. In this episode, I'm chatting with Dallas-Fort Worth photographer Sheena Dorton who is making a name for herself in the world of tintype. Sheena is one of the first guests on the show that was recommended by listeners that I talk to. Not only is she shooting photos at her Texas studio "Ruby Bellows Tintype", but Sheena was also on the the crew that took amazing photos of the cast starring in the hit TV series "1883".