Melissa Coote

Melissa Coote began 120 Suns with the wet plate collodion technique (tintype) in 2019, and completed the body of work with an older Daguerrotype technique. Having no negative and thus no means of replication, each tintype and Daguerreotype is totally unique; the image captured is particular and unique to the moment of its capture.  

This work is something that sears right into our imaginative and creative selves. The camera shutter is opened for a matter of seconds and the image of the sun is burned onto the silver gelatine gel on the tin or the iodine fumed pure silver plate.  It is nothing like the familiar ‘objects’ that we photograph; this is pure intense light and it is the sheer intensity of the sun’s light that is scorched into the silver. The result is something that is round, yes, just like the sun but isn’t at all a ‘picture’ of the sun. Each plate glows, and changes color depending on the angle that you see it from - it interacts with the light in the room. It is gold, it is silver, it is blue, it is green. The daguerrotypes even disappear under certain light..