T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA Bellaire High School student Mahkenzie Poggi takes volunteer Oliva Kiger-Camilo’s picture as volunteer Annie O’Neil assists.

BELLAIRE — Bellaire High School photography students learned a photography technique from the mid-19th century on Friday afternoon.

Students learned a “wet plate” method, which according to The Hub “uses a glass base to produce a negative image that is printed on albumen paper.” A professor from Kenyon College originally developed wet plate in Ohio in 1850.

The students made tintype images using 4×5-inch format cameras. They then took a tin weight and sensitized it with silver. Students made their picture then developed it in a mobile dark room, according to instructor Rebecca Kiger, artist in residence at Bellaire High School through the Ohio Arts Council.

Visiting artist, photographer and teacher Lisa Elmaleh, who lives in a cabin in Paw Paw, West Virginia, visited the students to teach them about wet plate. Elmaleh said she got into photography and art because her father was a photographer.

As a child, she remembers going to the dark room and watching as images came up in the trays, so she was always interested in photography and how it worked. She started using photography to learn more about the world around her, she said.

“It’s kind of a once-in-a-lifetime type opportunity,” Kiger said of the experience. “And we’re so excited that she could come and we could have this day to do this.”

Kiger and Elmaleh did a workshop over the summer and hit it off, Kiger said, so she invited Elmaleh to the school to teach the students about the craft.

To compensate Elmaleh for visiting the school, students had a bake sale to raise almost $900 to be able to have lunch and provide her with a hotel stay, and several photographers donated money as well.

“I just always want to give them as many different opportunities as I can,” Kiger said of her students. “And I really love doing this particular process because it’s very, very slow, and I think it’s contrary to how most of us are living our lives, where things are immediate. You take a picture with your phone, you see it immediately. This takes a lot more patience and thoughtfulness. It’s hands on.”

She noted that whenever she’s able to expand the lives and experiences of students, it’s a joy for her. She said this technique can work with all aspects of life, because the technique involves creative problem solving.

“This process requires patience, thoughtfulness, and those are skills you can transfer to whatever job you do,” Kiger said.

Kiger is not hired as a teacher at Bellaire High School, but an Ohio Arts Council grant enables her to work with students at the school.

Elmaleh said she was there to giggle with the students and teach them how to do the wet plate collodion process and the tintype process.

She described the process as pouring sticky collodion onto a metal plate, and then sensitizing it in a bath of silver nitrate. The plate then comes out of the silver nitrate, and it’s put into a plate holder, walked over to the camera where the plate is exposed, and then it’s brought back to the dark box and developed on site. She noted that everything happens in a matter of minutes before the plate dries out.

Senior Maddie Miller has plans to become a criminal investigator and said she was really excited when Elmaleh first came because the specific cameras they used are the same ones that used to be used for crime scene photos, and that intrigued her.

“I’ve taken photography since my freshman year, so I’ve been in it all four years now. I just was thrown into it as an elective my freshman year and didn’t really think anything of it, and I fell in love with it my freshman year, and I came back every single year. My biggest part of photography that I love the most is sports photography.”

Miller plans to continue her experience and knowledge of sports photography, including taking the school’s sports pictures, such as football, volleyball and basketball photos into her college career.

Senior Raven Pettigrew said she was excited to learn and experience something new, doing something in the 21st century that is from the 19th century that she never experienced before.

“And once I got to experience today, I was like, ‘Wow, this is actually cool,’ but very time consuming,” she said.

The seniors said the process was difficult at first because it was new to them and because the exposure on modern cameras is set with a dial and a number, but the exposure on these cameras depends on how many seconds you keep the cap off the lens.

“I learned that you have to be patient. You have to be patient and ready to divert. Because with the digital camera you just press the button, take the picture. This way, you have to sit and wait three minutes for every picture. It’s very time consuming,” Pettigrew said. “So you just have to be patient.”

West Virginia University visual journalism instructor David Smith participated in teaching the students the art of photography as well. He said this is an opportunity to teach students to slow down and be a bit more deliberate and thoughtful about photography. He noted that because students in high school and young people in general are used to instant gratification and taking photos quickly on their phones, they don’t think about composition.

“I hope that they take a few things from this experience. One, I want them to learn the process. Yes, that’s like first and foremost. But I also hope that some influence has also been made that they all see the artists in themselves and recognize that and can access that artist that they have inside of them,” Elmaleh said. “I see vast intelligence potential, readiness to like, respond and engage with the world in these girls’ faces, and I’ve been watching it happen in real time. And, yeah, I’m just really inspired by them.”