"I am fascinated by the unpredictability and the hand made quality of alternative processes and like experimenting with dry plate tintypes and liquid emulsion in an attempt to produce interesting images that provide a refreshing alternative to digital imagery. As an image maker I try to embrace the “lucky mistakes” that result from these techniques and processes in my work. “Lina” is part of a series entitled “Ophelia”, which explores themes of beauty, decay and mortality. The instability of photographic emulsion on wax plates results in a unique surface texture causing the image to peel, crack and slowly erode in an unforeseeable way. For the derelict prison series I felt that the dark tonality of tintype plates enhanced the depicted atmosphere of decay, itself symbolic of the state of prisons in our society. More recently I have begun to take tintype portraits whose long exposure times involuntarily evoke images of the past but also seem to bring out the essence of the sitter in a unique way."

Tina Maas 2007