Modern photography has a way of simplifying variables to assist the photographer in making images. Shutter, aperture, ISO, image stabilizer, external flash, all things we now take for granted. But for photographer and historian Forest Casey, his passion for photography led him to practice the extreme version of this art form.

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In 1860s, the simple process of producing a single image, was extremely delicate and elaborate. You had to be a proper scientist to understand the chemical process of producing the film, exposing it properly, and then developing it after exposure.

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Any mistake in any of these steps, renders a worthless image. But as anything worth doing, the process is part of the fun, the end result, a memory of a job well done. Although for these prints, the original is the image taken. One directly onto aluminum, with an extreme detail. An image as impactful as the process to create it.​

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Magnolia Tintype is a documentary portrait project by Rodrigo Gaya Villar exploring community identity through the lens of the wet-plate tintype process. The work bridges historical photographic technique with contemporary documentary practice. Photography by Rodrigo Gaya Villar / Gayaman Visual Studio, LLC.​