Lawrence commercial photographer Earl Richardson crouches behind a 5x7 camera as he readies it for a portrait of Lawrence resident Tom Underwood and his 1916 Ford Model T outside his Lawrence home on Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015. For a recent series of portraits, Richardson is using a process called wet

On a recent afternoon, Lawrence resident Earl Richardson is slowly pouring a viscous chemical mixture of nitrocellulose, ether and alcohol from a small glass vial onto a metal plate in the trunk of his vehicle. His 6-foot-5 frame is hunched over as he carefully rotates the plate so the syrupy substance runs to the edges without spilling over, just before submerging the coated metal plate in a bath of 9 percent silver nitrate.

For all of us C- chemistry students, Richardson, who is a commercial photographer, will quickly explain that he isn’t trying to replicate any of the nefarious “business practices” of the fictional “Breaking Bad” character Walter White. He is, however, preparing to shoot a portrait of Lawrence resident Tom Underwood, 78, who is waiting 15 yards away, positioned against his 1916 Ford Model T and smiling like a 16-year-old with his first car.

Lawrence commercial photographer Earl Richardson crouches behind a 5x7 camera as he readies it for a portrait of Lawrence resident Tom Underwood and his 1916 Ford Model T outside his Lawrence home on Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015. For a recent series of portraits, Richardson is using a process called wet

Richardson, whom I have known since I was a part-time photographer and he was a staffer for the Journal-World back in 2001, invited me to come and observe this photographic process called “wet plate collodion.” The process dates back to the 1850s and was employed by Mathew Brady and other photographers during the Civil War to portray soldiers, generals and even President Lincoln. The only noticeable difference between Richardson’s and Brady’s method is that Brady developed his photos in a wet lab and darkroom pulled by horses. Richardson, on this day, is working out of the trunk of his Subaru.

“I don’t know how the hell they did that,” Richardson says. “I’m out working in the back of a Subaru wagon on a windy day and they’re out there on a battlefield in a horse-drawn wagon looking for water, probably.”

To give a quick idea about how the wet plate collodion process works, it essentially involves treating a metal or glass plate with a chemical mixture (collodion) that allows silver to adhere to the plate, creating a light-sensitive emulsion where the image will appear. The plate is then loaded into a light-sealed housing and then into the camera. An exposure of a scene or subject is made by removing the lens cap (usually for about a second). The exposed plate is then removed from the camera still in its light-sealed housing, taken under a light-blocking shroud where it is placed within the developer (slowly agitated for about 13-14 seconds), removed and placed within a fixing agent until the image clears. Finally, it is rinsed with water. What remains afterward is the photograph in its physical form on a plate with a gritty and distinct 19th century aesthetic, virtually unachievable without some very heavy-handed digital photo editing.

“Even though I’ve done a couple hundred of these, every time my heart rate goes up,” says Richardson, who began experimenting with the wet plate collodion process about a year ago after being turned on to the idea by a photographer friend in Kansas City. “It kind of reminds me of the magic of being in the darkroom when I was a kid and seeing an image pop up in the tray. You never know exactly how it’s going to turn out. So there’s always that level of excitement.”

Richardson’s “collodion camera” is a custom made, 12-by-12-inch maple box. Affixed to the camera is a Dallmeyer 3B lens manufactured in 1869, just four years after the Civil War. His first test subject was his wife of 35 years, Teresa, who has not only sat for multiple portraits, but has also allotted her husband the use of multiple rooms in their Old West Lawrence home to experiment and perfect his craft.

“I remember the first plate I made on my own was of my wife, and it was technically terrible,” Richardson says. “It was overexposed, but I got an image on a piece of metal by myself using this process from 150 years ago. That’s pretty cool.”

In some ways, Richardson explains that the wet plate collodion process isn’t as far removed from the modern digital world as one might think with regard for its immediacy.

“You go from having this piece of metal with nothing on it to about 15 seconds later (after the development process) and there’s an image on it.”

In other ways, comparing the two would be akin to drawing similarities between the Pony Express and email. For example, during an all-day shoot that uses modern camera technology, Richardson says he might shoot up to 4,000 images. Not with wet plates. If all is going well and he’s quick on the draw, Richardson says he can make five to six exposures an hour as preparing each plate takes between 10 and 15 minutes. But the ability to shoot 12 frames-per-second with a modern digital camera and a motor drive isn’t always a good thing. Richardson believes that slowing down can be beneficial to the end result.

“We used to be limited to the length of the roll of film for a 35 mm camera,” Richardson says. “Now you can put a 16 gig, 32 gig or 64 gig card in your camera, and you can go out and shoot literally tens of thousands of frames. I think a lot of times, thinking about the image you’re trying to make gets pushed to the back.”

In addition to Tom Underwood, his wife and his children, Richardson has “collodionized,” as he refers to it, a multitude of friends, artists and other Lawrence residents, including yours truly. He bears a small remnant of the process in the form of a eighth-inch black stain on the tip of his right hand pinkie from working with the silver. He says the stains were much more apparent during the summer months. So much so that his wife asked him to stop making collodion prints for three weeks leading up to his youngest daughter’s wedding to allow them to fade away.

“I’m doing pretty well right now. I haven’t shot for about a week,” he says while looking at his pinkie.

After a year’s worth of making such portraits, Richardson says that he would one day like to put on an exhibition. For now, one of his most rewarding collodion portraits is of his granddaughter Breckin, who is 16 months old, sitting in a chair and watching with curious, bright eyes.

“Actually getting her to sit still long enough for me to focus, put the plate in and make the exposure, that was one that I really enjoyed doing. I knew I was going to get one shot that day. Everything just fell into place.”