1851 Chemistry in 2026 Light

The contrast could not be greater: having to sit completely still posing for my portrait taken using the wet plate collodion technique in the middle of high-speed, fast scanning and crowded Photo London at Olympia.

And yet, for a good few minutes I did step into the 1850s. Sitting barely breathing, desperate not to blink, feeling the intense heat from the photo lamps, while catching dozens of people passing by with the corner of my eye. A totally surreal experience.

The result is this beautifully imperfect, raw, silver-toned photograph, which in its day was the absolute cutting-edge technology of portraiture. In a world of millions of instant digital snaps, this process forces you to wait. It carries the weight of the moment it was made. It feels like an object.

Huge thanks to the incredible Magda Kuca (www.kucamagda.com) behind the lens for capturing this.