Ian Ruhter is a fine art photographer, making portraits and exploring the landscape using the wet plate collodion process, who has become internationally known for creating the world's largest photographs with this historical medium. He spent his youth growing up with learning disabilities, and found reading and writing to often be problematic. At the age of 25 he discovered photography and quickly realized that it could be a powerful means of communication that could provide him a voice in ways that he hadn’t had in the past. As he learned about photography and progressed his skills with the medium, he began to think that using it as a means to make a living would benefit him by allowing him to both express himself and provide for his life. It was at this point that he set out working commercially and quickly picked up the clothing and shoe brand, Vans. As a client they kept him quite busy shooting catalogs and ad campaigns which eventually led to other editorial jobs that allowed him more creative freedom. Even though he was beginning to pick up other clients, Vans kept him on as a salaried photographer who provided year round work to him. However, building and running a successful commercial practice became a more unfulfilling endeavor over time, and Ian began to explore other options within the photographic industry. Creativity and uniqueness became something for him to now set his sights on.

On Ian’s search for a creative and unique outlet he soon discovered the wet plate collodion process, a 19th century photographic process using raw materials, such as silver nitrate, to make your own light sensitive film to coat either a metal or glass plate - with those on metal known as tintypes, and those on glass as ambrotypes. He discovered this age old photographic process via the modern technology of the internet. After learning the history and technical process of this medium by himself, he took a workshop from photographer William Dunniway. After time and testing of chemistry and materials, Ian concluded that ambrotypes were to be the main focus of his work, for their inherent beauty and detail. Later, Ian decided to put all of his commercial work behind him and dedicate his energies to working in this medium, dubbing his new project, Silver & Light. Starting where one does in this process by shooting 4x5” and 8x10” plates, Ian quickly felt that more could be accomplished, and immediately found a desire to make images as large as he possibly could. After experimenting with scanning the smaller plates and making enlargements, he decided that this simply was not enough for him, wanting to keep the look and feel of the original. The tactile quality of these originals was unmistakable and keeping this feeling became paramount in his work. The desire to make plates that were 4x5 feet, instead of 4x5 inches became his goal and his passion. Without thinking of what a technically daunting task this would be, he simply charged forward into his goal with no excuses standing in his way.

“Once you do what is within you, it will be so unique and so different, that it truly will be yours.”

Ian soon realized the difficulties of photographing plates with this process at the desired size brought about the need for not just a massive camera, but a darkroom space large enough to develop them. After telling his father about the ideas he had, Ian’s father felt that a box-style truck of some sort would solve both problems. It could be used to mount a lens at the rear of the vehicle and hold an unexposed plate inside during the actual shooting time, and then use it as a darkroom for processing the very plate that was exposed inside. This also accomplished the basic need of mobility in getting this massive camera from one place to the next with relative ease for something this large. The wet plate process requires specific chemistry and precise time and organizational skills in order to create a successful photograph, with the coating of the plate, exposure, and processing all happening in roughly a ten minute space of time. The camera truck, performing this double duty, was born after the purchase of an old UPS sized delivery truck at auction. After spending an ever increasing amount of preparation time in ordering chemistry, cutting and cleaning plates for coating and exposure, and storing them safely, Ian’s time actually out in the field making photographs becomes limited and extremely important. Ian set a goal of making at least one plate a day keeps the process slow and methodical, but has been the necessary time frame needed to pace himself in creating successful plates worthy of exhibition.