A Passion for collecting: Ambrotypes!

Original and one of a kind portrait of a lovely young Pennsylvania woman in the era just before the Civil War. Note her tinted, slightly rosy cheeks and highlighted gold jewelry.

 

Original and one of a kind portrait of a stern older Pennsylvania gent in the era just before the Civil War. Note his slightly rosy cheeks.

I have a passion for antiques, specially old photos or in the very beginning of them: daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes and cartes de visite. I will be uploading them shortly.
These two ambrotypes are specially dear to me because they seem to be from a civil war era couple.
Same setting, same background... Just wish I had more information about those people!

This passion for collecting old photos unites 2 of my favorite things: antiques and fashion. Can you imagine dressing every single day like this?
Can you imagine the lives of these people? No electricity, no internet (gasp!), no way to communicate with others except by letter or in the best case, telegraph. Crazy.


This wonderful pair was bought on Etsy.com, and since I am lazy ;-) , I've decided to upload their pictures from it instead of shooting them myself... oh well... Well, coming back to Etsy.com, what a resource! They have absolutely wonderful things, antiques, vintage, handmade stuff, etc. And you don't have to worry about bidding, losing it to another person, etc. Just buy-it-now and go! Cannot recommend this site enough!


A LITTLE BACKGROUND on AMBROTYPES:
Underexposed collodion negatives on glass were bleached out by treatments with nitric acid or mercury bichloride. They were then backed with black lacquer or black paper to present their positive image. They were often mounted in elaborated cased frames with a hinged covers. Many times, today, they are found with just one side of the frame, the side the photo rests in. Each ambrotype, just as with daguerreotypes is a single-print, one-of-a-kind -- a truly unique image from a single exposure. They were easy to tint, so ambrotypes often were detailed with gold paint to accentuate jewelry or with rosy browns to highlight cheeks and lips. By the late 1860s or era of the Civil War, ambrotypes were mostly replaced by tintypes and cdvs / carte de vistes.