Tintype/Ambrotype on Front Surface Mirror - Can it resemble a daguerreotype?

[holmburgers]

This is kind of a silly question, but I've been wondering it and well, I'm curious.

If you were to coat a positive collodion emulsion on a front surface mirror, or other highly polished & reflective surface, do you think it could replicate the look of a daguerreotype?

And likewise, would coating a piece of glass or japanned steel with liquid emulsion resemble an ambrotype/tintype? Isn't this what the Rockland Colloid tintype kit does??

thanks in advance for satiating my curiousity

[Barry S]

Collodion is pretty sticky stuff--it probably wouldn't be hard to coat a clean front surface mirror. Hopefully, it wouldn't be reactive in the silver bath. I think you'd get something that looks more like a freakish wet plate mirror than a dag. I've seen "tintypes" made with commercial liquid emulsion kits and they look fake to me. Fake in the sense it's a valid process, but only superficially resembling wet plates.

[jnanian]

dags have a positive image and if you tilt them
they have a negative image as well ..

[holmburgers]

thanks guys.

But an ambro/tintype is also a negative image, like a dag.

I find it odd that Rockland says repeatedly "genuine" tintypes when clearly they're not.

[cliveh]

For the sort of images that I think you are trying to emulate, you may wish to think more in terms of vapour deposit than collodian emulsion.

[jnanian]

thanks guys.

But an ambro/tintype is also a negative image, like a dag.

I find it odd that Rockland says repeatedly "genuine" tintypes when clearly they're not.

actually there was a time period after wet plates were around
that there were genuine silver gelatin tintypes, they weren't as popular
as wet plate ones, but they did exist.

[holmburgers]

Well that is news to me!

I kinda got hooked onto collodion by reading Photography and the American Scene by Taft. If only we could have another civil war... I'd be the first in line to become an itinerant tin-typer.

[deisenlord]

Kerik Koulis has done this, it makes a very cool image but no, it's not really like a Dag, its more fugitive for lack of a better word.

[Kerik]

Yes, it can definitely be done. Like Ike said, it isn't really like a dag other than it's on a reflective surface. They do look cool, though.

[holmburgers]

Thanks guys. Well, cool is a worthy endeavor in my book. How about that Halo-Chrome stuff? That looks interesting too, and I've seen it referred to as a Poor Man's Daguerreotype.

On a somewhat related note.. I was looking through old photo books at a used booked store and surprisingly the former owner had used some old prints as bookmarks. I have never seen a print with as much "sulfiding" as this one; so much so that it was strongly reflective and resembled a mirror. It was pretty coooool....

Cheers!