Armed with a camera and old techniques, Tennessee photographer faces fears

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - In this digital age, professional photographer Kelsey Dillow is going old school and using an historic process to capture her subjects. The art form doesn’t just connect her to the past. It connects her to people in a way she’s never been capable of before.

“We’re all climbing mountains that people have no idea what they are,” Dillow said. “I’m definitely someone who’s struggled with a lot of anxiety, specifically social anxiety, for a long time. Tripping over your words and your heart racing and a constant feeling of being examined on all fronts. That’s how it manifests for me in my body.”

Dillow is a master of tintypes, a style of photography that dates back to the 1850′s and typically takes longer to create than a normal photograph captured on film.

Commonly referred to as a wet plate process, tintypes are made by coating a thin metal plate, originally tin, with chemicals. The wet metal plate is placed into a camera and exposed to light. The resulting underexposed negative is washed in a chemical solution bath to create the image.

Alone in a darkroom, it’s easy to hide. But, when it comes time to set up her old camera and ask subjects to position themselves for a photograph, it becomes clear there is nowhere to run. And, it turns out Dillow isn’t trying to.

“There’s something about having that camera in between us that makes that disappear. I feel like I’m more of a guide to show people what this process is like and educate them on the history of it. So, it’s less about me and more about them and the process and what we’re going to make together,” Dillow explained.

“This really is an intimate process where you’re thrust into a social scenario,” WVLT News Anchor Amanda Hara remarked. “It’s a tool I can use to get to know strangers, and I’ve never done that before. Making tintypes has made me able to connect with people in a way I never was able to before,” Dillow explained.

During the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee, Dillow set up a mobile dark room and pop-up set to photograph festival-goers. The old camera and table display of eerie tintypes piqued the interest of people passing by, many of them stopping to pay the $75 fee to have a tintype made.

“That’s also another way tintypes have brought me out into a communal setting. When I’m traveling with my tintype setup, my darkroom is a little box and the rest of the world is outside of it that I get to interact with,” Dillow said.

Each tintype can take about 15 minutes to create, depending on the weather. That means more time spent interfacing with a subject.

“It allows for a stronger connection to be made between the sitter and the photographer,” Dillow said.

Dillow said tintypes were one of the first forms of photographs that most people could afford. “Back then, it was a way to remember the people you cared about and sometimes it meant you only had one chance. Whether it meant someone was leaving for war and they weren’t going to come back. Whether that was when a child was born and you weren’t sure if they were going to make it. A lot of tintypes you can find are post-mortem, which means maybe a child died during birth and it was the only way they’d be able to be remembered.”

Because they’re made on metal, tintypes can last for generations. Many families keep them as heirlooms. They can’t be reproduced, so each is one-of-a-kind.

Dillow calls her creations wild, spooky and unexpected and uses the medium to present people of today using a process that is quite old. She applies the tintype process to family photos, weddings, even anniversary shoots. She said people react to the unique medium with shock and awe. “It’s so jarring to see yourself the way the process sees you,” she said. “I’ve never made a tintype where someone didn’t look completely stunning. The process can see so much more than our digital cameras can now.”

Why are people rarely smiling in a tintype? Dillow said long exposure times are partly to blame. On a cloudy day a subject may have to sit perfectly still for up to 20 seconds. Holding a smile that long can be difficult.

Dillow finds a certain beauty in the medium and a sense of calm in chasing it. Tintypes even help her see something in herself: her purpose. “My role is to document the incredible thins and people around me everyday,” she said.

Now, every time Dillow develops an image, she develops a connection.

“There’s something that just clicks when I make portraits of people that disintegrates those feelings. I think it’s just about finding what that is for you,” because it’s worth it when you do,” Dillow said. “One-hundred percent worth it. I have never felt more fulfilled.”

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