In the era of digital photography and mural-sized color enlargements, David Sokosh is using the 19th Century Wet-Plate Collodion process as part of the renaissance in hand-crafted photography, on an intimate scale.

The Brooklyn Navy-Yard is the subject of this, Sokosh's latest, body of Tintype work. Founded in 1801, the Navy-Yard played a role in every conflict from the War of 1812 to Korea. The rarely-seen U.S. Naval Hospital was constructed in 1838 as part of an early expansion of the Yard. Unused since the 1960's it sits, amazingly preserved, surrounded by acres of open fields and satelite buildings. Sokosh captures the haunting beauty of this regal structure, and its surprisingly bucolic setting.

WET-PLATE COLLODION:HOW IT WORKS

Sokosh uses original lenses from the period, on cameras of his own design and fabrication. The chemical mixtures are identical to those used in the 19th century. In his only departure from early techniques, Sokosh uses aluminum rather than tin plates.

In our world of digital, mass-produced, photography, Sokosh is drawn to the hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind nature of these photographs. Sokosh says: “I’m a 21st Century person, living in a self-created 19th Century world full of period objects of all kinds. This authentic process lets me explore the mindset of the early photographer/scientist/collector. I’m drawn to the quality of photograph-as-object that Wet-Plate yields, and excited by the hands-on aspect of the process.”