Frederick Scott Archer

Frederick Scott Archer was an English photographer who introduced the collodion wet-plate process in the 1850s, making detailed negatives faster and cheaper to produce than earlier photographic methods.

Collodion process: A photographic process using collodion-coated glass plates sensitized, exposed, and developed while still wet. Archer’s invention became the defining wet-plate method of nineteenth-century photography.
Collodion: A solution of nitrocellulose in ether and alcohol that forms a thin film as its solvents evaporate. Archer used it to bind light-sensitive chemicals to glass plates.
Daguerreotype: A photographic process that creates a unique image on a polished, silver-coated copper plate. Archer’s negative-based process offered reproducible prints unlike the daguerreotype.
Peter Wickens Fry: An English chemist and photographer who collaborated with Frederick Scott Archer on the collodion process. Fry helped Archer investigate and publish the process’s photographic chemistry.
Ambrotype: A positive photograph made on an underexposed collodion glass negative, viewed against a dark backing. This popular portrait format adapted Archer’s process into a direct positive image.
Silver nitrate: An inorganic compound used in photography as a source of light-sensitive silver ions. A bath of silver nitrate sensitized Archer’s collodion-coated plates.
Calotype: A photographic process using a paper negative to make multiple positive prints. Archer replaced its paper support with glass for greater image detail.
James Ambrose Cutting: An American photographer who patented and popularized the ambrotype process in the 1850s. Cutting turned collodion negatives into a widely adopted direct-positive format.
Tintype: A photographic positive made on a thin iron sheet coated with dark lacquer and collodion. Tintypes carried wet-plate photography into inexpensive, durable portraiture.
Glass plate negative: A transparent photographic support bearing a negative image that can produce multiple prints. Archer’s process formed its image on glass, allowing fine detail and repeated printing.

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