Today I am bringing you Providence local, Archer & Co. Tintype Photobooth creator, Phillip LeBlanc. I had the pleasure of meeting Phillip a few weeks ago and the moment I saw what he was doing I knew he needed to be a part of Winter Moon.

Kelly and I visited his workplace/studio at iolabs where we had an amazing photoshoot! Phillip and his lovely girlfriend, Melissa, photographed us with a vintage tintype camera! At the end of the shoot Phillip taught us how to use the vintage camera, how awesome is that?!

We know you’ll love this interview and encourage you to get a tintype portrait by Archer & Co.

Ladies and gentlemen, Phillip LeBlanc….

What is Archer & Co?

“Like everyone that graduates with a degree in fine arts the difficulty is establishing a balance between making art and holding down a real job. That’s when the Tintype photobooth idea came alive. The goal of the Tintype Photobooth was to find a middle ground, a profitable venture where a fine art craft could meet an everyday purpose. Besides the practical need for making a living, and having a creative outlet for myself, taking the photobooth into the real world was also a logical next step from my previous RISD thesis work.”

Tell us about Tintype and the process it takes to create one.

“A tintype is a direct positive photograph on a thin metal plate with either silver halide crystals suspended in wet collodion, or in our case, dry gelatin emulsion.”

“I won’t bore you with a long list of details but each plate is created from raw material and chemical that undergoes a series of laborious steps done myself by hand. I like to call the final result a ‘modern tintype’ as we have replaced the extremely toxic chemicals the original process involved with new and safer ones. However, the process itself remains historically authentic. In staying with tradition, I love bringing the photobooth to fairs and events as street tintype photographers had done through the 19th century.”





4X5 tintype. Phillip LeBlanc.

How did Archer & Co. come about?

“In short, this body of work is a photographic narrative following the life of Archer Flaneur, a metaphorical 20th turn of the century version of myself, experiencing life in the modern world as I have. A requirement of the thesis was to present this work at two gallery shows. For the second show, I took Archer to a new level of performance and created a carnival outside the gallery with face painting, a large-scale zoetrope, and ,you guessed it, live tintype portraits.”

What does Archer & Co. mean/stand for?

“When we first started I knew that Archers name would be included. The rest, coincidentally, fell into my lap upon finding an antique brief case perfect for storing tintype chemicals at a flea market. Its manufacturing label read Archer & Co. Baggage Build. The discovery felt like a small peace of the future falling into place. How fitting to add the Co. as a reference to my girlfriend Melissa, and friends and family that have been helping me run the photobooth at fairs from the beginning. Its also coincidence that a man named Fredrick Scott Archer developed the first chemical process for tintypes in the 1850’s!”

Why did you decide to use tintype as your creative medium?