Steve Stoer - TINTYPEBOOK - A social portrait in the 21st century

A portrait on a single metal plate with its marks and imperfections gives us a sense of uniqueness, one of a kind. The photographers skill is not enough. An experience, a story to tell, a compromise between portraitist and portrayed. A tintype is impossible to repeat. The importance in recovering these old techniques confronts the massification of digital imagery today. “A will to give more than 8 seconds of your life and look beyond the camera.”

I found that the work I was doing with tintypes had the expression I was looking for.

A new strength, an urge to slow down the process, concentrate on the individual.

We live in the paradox of being part of a globalized world, all connected threw social networks but more and more isolated in one’s self.

During one year and a half I took hundreds of portraits of people from all over the world in a small atelier in Lisbon. They lived this experience and saw the process, took part of the event. These portraits traveled in the physical form of a metal plate to different couuntries and tell a story of a time that once was ours and takes the risk of being forgotten.