Old Time Portraits

A bottle of homemade collodion next to Elmaleh’s tintype of pickers Moses Nelligan and Matthew Kinman, of Clifftop, West Virginia.

The Hogslop String Band in Tennessee’s Harpeth River.

Photographer Lisa Elmaleh.

Virginia banjo player Hannah Johnson.

Patrick Shields with his mandolin in Georgia.

Elmaleh eschews the convenience of digital cameras.

Elmaleh uses a number of chemicals to produce her tintype images.

Inside Elmaleh’s darkroom.

Elmaleh during the developing process in her darkroom holding a bottle of collodion.

Elmaleh crisscrosses Appalachia to document musicians. Bottom left to right: Dennis Rhodes, Hawesville, Kentucky, and Ben Townsend, Jones Spring, West Virgninia.

Bare Branches, 2013, Keezletown, Virginia.

To date, Elmaleh has photographed about a hundred musicians. Pictured here is Janice Birchfield of the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers, Roan Mountain, Tennessee, top, and Lindsay McCaw, Keezletown, Virginia.

Elmaleh with her trusty 1996 Toyota Tacoma pickup, outfitted both as a mobile darkroom and a camper.