Wet plate collodion is a photographic process invented by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851 and was a primary method of capturing images on glass or metal plates from the early 1850s until the 1880s or so. It is a wet process and must be completed before the plate dries, easily ten minutes or so in our genial Scottish weather; this timeframe brings an involvement from the subject, who bears witness to the production of a unique and revealing image from beginning to end.

So, what exactly is it? Well, it is in essence a fantastically pungent liquid that assists a light sensitive solution of silver nitrate to adhere to a substrate of (usually) metal or glass. Stinks of ether because it contains ether: I had a deep headache my first summer and didn’t complain about it once. My intention was to portrait the Dunbar fishermen for a project called McArthur’s Store using this process simply because it is sensitive at the ultra-violet end of the spectrum. Our skins are translucent, just, and these men have worked outside their whole lives, beaten by all weathers offering a suggestion that we are actually peering beneath their skin. Since beginning this project, the process has undergone a renaissance – it is not an immediately straightforward process and I enjoy that fact that it is often tricky, however practiced I feel or confident on the day – wet plate collodion has the propensity to unravel the best practitioner.

This image was my gift to those who supported me. I made a dozen similar but unique images, and have one left. This work was funded by Creative Scotland and Dunbar Harbour Trust.