Hi! I’m Amber Ascher, a Milwaukee-based photographer using 19th-century techniques to craft unique, timeless images. I specialize in the 1850s wetplate collodion process to make tintypes: handcrafted photos that are shot on metal plates and developed immediately after exposure.

Each image that I create with the wetplate process captures a sliver of time with light: rays of the sun are reflected from your face, the side of a building, or the trunk of a tree and etched onto a layer of silver & immortalized through the alchemy of chemical reaction. Tintypes must be developed within minutes of being made, turning every portrait session into a moment of wonder. I love sharing this experience with people, and it’s usually an emotional moment when the final images appear! This is a slower process, requiring patience, stillness, and presence to get it right - but then we are rewarded with instant results, and the magic of this photography is never forgotten.

Immersed in the historic roots of modern-day wetplate photography, I studied traditional techniques under John Coffer in the summer of 2023 on his farm in Dundee, NY and have been practicing and sharing my love for the wetplate process since then in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and around the Midwest.  

Photo of Amber with her Eastman Kodak camera, by Emily Dalske ‘25