Paige Whitcomb is an award winning artist living and working in the Ozarks of Southwest Missouri. Paige creates photos using the traditional method of wet collodion photography with an authentic 19th century studio camera. This historic process allows for a single photo to be captured without any possibility of duplicating the image.

Paige received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History with a minor in Critical Methodologies to Literature from Missouri State University. Paige approaches tintype photography from an art historical perspective; she draws inspiration from the invention of the camera and the possibilities that came from artists being able to capture the world around them as they saw it, as opposed to the past way of attempting to recreate reality on canvas.

Paige creates tintypes to capture a staged fictional world, literally. Paige’s images are the opposite of modern photography; in a society where anyone can take a picture anywhere, her meticulously staged scenes allow the viewer to see the world through the artist’s perspective, which is often an allegorical view of modern culture. Paige’s intention is to have the observer question what century the image was taken, where, and why.

The wet collodion method of photography began in the 1860s, and is one of the oldest forms of photography in the world. The photos this historic method captures directly onto thin metal plates are most commonly known as tintypes. Compared to earlier photographic processes the wet collodion method had a faster processing time, which rendered an image within minutes as opposed to hours in the past. Tintypes became very popular during the middle of the 19th century because it was a quicker and less expensive way for people to have a photo of their loved ones taken. Today, Paige uses the same chemical processes as the early photographers. Paige uses authentic cameras from the 1800s. There is a certain grit about the appearance of a wet collodion photograph that the 160 year old cameras and chemicals are able to draw out of the subject. In the past people called tintypes "soul photos" and it is easy to understand why.

Every image displayed is an enlargement made from an 8” x 10” plate.

An archival film scan of the in-camera plate is created, which allows for the possibility of an enlargement. Enlargements are the combination of historic methods of photography intertwined with 21st century photographic methods. To keep all of Paige’s photographs true to the historic process, all images are singular editions with no copies available. Each enlargement comes with the 8” x 10” tintype that the image was enlarged from.