Artist views soldiers through history's lens

Sean Harder | Sunday, June 3, 2007
photographs: John Carrington
Savannah Morning News

Ellen Susan captures soldiers' portraits using Civil War-era wet plate photography.

Like Civil War soldiers more than a century before him, Army Lt. Col. Tim Monahan sits as still as he can while returning the unblinking gaze of the antique camera lens.

After several seconds the lens cap is returned. The exposure is captured and Savannah fine art photographer Ellen Susan surfaces from beneath the black cloth at the back of the camera.

After a bit of chemistry in the makeshift darkroom she's created on the second floor of her Barnard Street home, a somewhat haunting, silver image of the Army doctor begins to appear on a small black stained-glass plate.

It's this juxtaposition of modern soldiers being photographed with a method used in the last half of the 19th century that makes Susan's portraits so unique. It's also the reason Monahan volunteered as one of her subjects before the dermatologist begins his first deployment as a battalion surgeon in Iraq.

"I'm a bit of a history buff and with this method you can see so much: not just the physical attributes of a person, but also kind of their soul in these photographs," he said. "In a way, there is something sad about them too. There is a sad aspect to them, like they're caught in time before they go on to something else."

Susan, who recently relocated to Savannah from New Jersey with her husband, said she got the idea to produce an exhibit of soldier portraits when she began paying attention to the number of uniformed men and women in the Savannah area.

"I start wondering who that person is and what their life is like," she said. "That's what I wanted people to do when they looked at these pictures of soldiers, rather than just see a bunch of guys in uniform, sort of anonymous."

The visible intensity in the face of each soldier Susan photographs has a lot to do with the 150-year-old wet plate method she uses. The resulting images, she said, "really linger on a person."

To capture an image, subjects must sit perfectly still for as long as 30 seconds as the exposure is made. That forces Susan's subjects to concentrate on the camera lens.

"They're much more engaged in the whole process than they would be if you were snapping a bunch of quick pictures," Susan said.

The labor-intensive process requires that each glass plate first be coated with collodion, a syrupy liquid made from dissolving nitrated cotton in a mixture of alcohol and ether. The concoction was once used by s urgeons as a liquid bandage due to its adhesive strengths.

The glass or metal plate is then soaked in a bath of silver nitrate before being loaded into the camera.

After the plate is exposed to the image, it's drenched in developer, rinsed, and the image appears in reverse, much like a traditional negative on film.

Susan began her project earlier this year. She's photographed 15 soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division so far and hopes to gather at least 50 subjects for a photography exhibit and possible book.

Some come for the free glass or metal portrait Susan offers in exchange for the three hours or so each photo session requires. Others are simply intrigued by the project.

Most are being photographed before deploying to war, and Susan asks each to fill out a short biographical form and share whatever thoughts they'd like about themselves.

Monahan said he'll be giving his portrait to his family before he deploys.

"I don't have many photographs of myself in uniform, so it will be nice to give my family a copy of this," he said.

HISTORY OF WET PLATE PHOTOGRAPHY
Fredrick Scott Archer, an English sculptor and photographer, began experimenting with collodion in the mid-19th Century to produce a photographic negative on ordinary glass plates.

Coating the plates with the syrupy collodion and placing the plate in a bath of silver nitrate helped affix a light sensitive compound of silver iodide on the plate's surface.

Once sensitized, the plate must be exposed in the camera before the collodion begins to set and dry. When drenched in developer the image begins to appear on the plate.

There are two types of wet plate photos: the ambrotype, which uses a dark glass plate or clear plate against a black background, and the ferrotype or tintype, which uses metal.

The ferrotype became widely used by the end of the Civil War throughout the United States. It is still used today by Civil War re-enactors and fine art photographers.