Maurene Cooper is bringing a Victorian-era touch to modern-day memories.
The founder and owner of Vanity Tintype is bringing 19th century photography techniques into the present to create unique photographic family heirlooms from her Fishtown photography studio.
Using a wet-collodian process that dates to the mid-1800s, Cooper is capturing memories in a Victorian-era style by reimagining contemporary wedding portraits, family or pet sessions, unique headshots and more.
This month, especially, Cooper is embracing a diverse range of subjects and clientele, extending beyond traditional boundaries, capturing the essence of LGBTQIA+ couples, immortalizing cherished pets, documenting the elegance of brides, breathing life into living history, tenderly portraying the bonds and dynamics within families and documenting a wide range of alternative personalities.
“By reimagining Victorian-era aesthetics through a contemporary lens, traditional portraiture is redefined in a modern context, and meaningful connections between the past and the present are created,” Cooper said. “In this fusion, we challenge conventional notions and redefine beauty, allowing the past to inform our present, while honoring and amplifying the voices and experiences of individuals who were once marginalized or overlooked. It is a visual dialogue that transcends time.”
The wet-collodion process is an intricate photographic technique invented by Englishman Frederick Scott Archer in 1851 involving adding a soluble iodide to a solution of collodion and coating a glass plate with the mixture. From there, the plate is immersed in a solution of silver nitrate to form silver iodide in the darkroom, exposed in the camera, developed and fixed.
A modification of the process, in which an underexposed negative was backed with black lacquered metal, known as a tintype, became very popular in the mid- to late-19th century.
Eventually, more modern technologies overtook the tintype process. Recently, through the efforts of artisans like Cooper, tintype photography has experienced a resurgence as an artistic form.
In her studio at 2316 Coral St., Cooper makes both tintypes (photographs on metal) and ambrotypes (photographs on black glass) and provides a unique space where clients can experience the enchantment of Victorian-era imagery. Vanity Tintype offers a variety of in-studio sessions, which can include both tintypes and ambrotypes. On-location sessions are also available. ••
