About Shane Martin Smith
Thanks so much for visiting my page!
I was lucky enough to start out in the Film Industry before the Digital Revolution took off. I obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Science and learned how to shoot 16MM & 35MM motion picture and the ins and outs of the darkroom. I absolutely loved being in the darkroom in college. I can still remember vividly how I felt developing my first large format negative. The feeling of the cameras hum as 35MM film flickered in front of my eye and purred against my chest.
After graduation, I went on to work in various cities all over the United States and abroad, working as a video Camera Operator and Lighting Technician. After several years, I finally took a full-time Cinematographers position at a production company based out of Colorado.
After several years of doing the same old thing for multiple production companies and clients, I was in much need of a creative outlet. While on a trip back to my hometown in Pittsburgh, I was invited to check out an event down in the city. A really great guy named Dave was there doing Tintype Photography. Although I had learned about this medium in film school, it had been so long since I had thought of it. In film school, we had a million-dollar lab/darkroom, and the idea of getting into large format photography in a tiny mountain town with little to no resources wasn't something in the front of my mind. I saw Dave's set up; he's 100% a 19th century period Wet Plate Artist. His setup was very basic, his darkroom was nothing special, but he was turning out amazing images. It all kind of clicked to me at that moment. Wet Plate Photography! This was something that I could do as an outlet.
Fast Forward, I'm now working to build a business where I get the opportunity to create one-of-a-kind heirlooms for people to enjoy and pass on for generations to come. The feeling I get when seeing a Tintype clear from a Negative to a Positive feels just like those moments in the darkroom in college or the vibration of a motion picture camera against my chest.
Shane Martin Smith