Large Format Photography at Tumacacori | Dry Plate Collodion Revival

Описание: Mission San Xavier del Bac is Arizona’s "White Dove"—a pristine monument to Spanish Colonial history. But it has a broken sister.
Sixty miles south of Tucson, Tumacácori stands as a skeletal record of the frontier. Built from the same blueprints and by the same hands as San Xavier, one mission became a cathedral—the other became a graveyard. By the winter of 1848, under the constant pressure of Apache raids, disease, and starvation, the community finally broke. They carried their holy statues to San Xavier and left these walls to the wind.

In this film, I document the "Architecture of Absence" using the Dry Plate Collodion Revival process. This isn't a digital filter; it is 19th-century chemistry. By coating glass in silver salts, I am capturing the physical texture of the eroding adobe and the harsh, orthochromatic light of the Sonoran Desert.


The Main Facade: A large format study of the mission’s defiant ambition.

The Adobe Ruins: Exploring the 6-foot-thick walls that eventually surrendered to the Apache frontier.

Dry Plate Development: The physical reaction of silver fixing the erosion of Tumacácori to glass.

[Technical Specs]

Camera: 8x10 Large Format

Process: Dry Plate Collodion (Hand-poured glass)

Location: Tumacácori National Historical Park, Arizona

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