Instead Of Photographing Hollywood Celebrities With A DSLR, This Photographer Used A Vintage Camera

Shooting with old-timey cameras is all fine and dandy, but Victoria Will really merged the old with the new in her Sundance 2015 celebrity tintypes! Sundance Film Festival is the American indie cinema event, and tintype is an extremely old method of photography. It was used in the second half of the 19th century, required nasty chemicals to work, and each photo had to be developed in 8 minutes or less. Using help from an alternative photography non-profit Penumbra Foundation to develop the pictures, Victoria made 175 tintype plates (actually made of aluminum).

Victoria first attempt to do Sundance celebrity tintypes was back in 2014. She came back having learned from her experience, and more ready than ever. For one, tintypes require a very long exposure time – that’s why old timey people are somewhat stiff and non-smiling in portraits. To get around it, Victoria used extremely powerful modern flash heads that put out enough light to do the pictures almost immediately. Might have momentarily blinded a few celebrities, too.

Commenting on her work, Victoria said “What I love about the process is how raw it is,” says Victoria. “We live in an age of glossy magazines and overly retouched skin. But there is no lying with tintypes. You can’t get rid of a few wrinkles in Photoshop.”

Here, we have selected some that we consider to be the best of the shoot.

More info: victoriawill.com (h/t: petapixel)

Bob Odenkirk, Breaking Bad

Kevin Bacon, X-Men: First Class

Leslie Bibb, Iron man

Jason Segel, How I met Your Mother

Lisa Kudrow, Friends

Jason Momoa, Game of Thrones, Conan: The Barbarian

Ewan McGregor, Star Wars

Jason Schwartzman, Grand Budapest Hotel

Zachary Quinto, Star Trek

Kristen Wiig, Bridesmaids

Patrick Wilson, The Conjuring

Vincent Cassel, Black Swan

James Franco, The Interview

James Marsden, X-Men

Spike Lee, Director, Malcolm X, 25th Hour

Chloe Rose, Degrassi

Jack Black, Nacho Libre

Slash, Guns'n'Roses

Hugo Weaving, Matrix, Lord of the Rings

Lena Dunham, Girls

Watch the video to see behind-the-scenes footage of the shoot!