Salt Born: A Tintype Portrait Show and Live Pop-Up in Montauk, NY

Montauk, NY — This August, Whalebone in Montauk will host Salt Born, an exhibition of tintype portraits capturing surfers and watermen, alongside a weekend of live tintype portrait sittings open to the public.

The show opens Friday, August 28th, On view will be work from The LIFERS Project, presented under the show title Salt Born — a body of work shot in 2015 using the wet-plate collodion process, one of photography's oldest techniques, dating back to the 1850s. Salt Born presents a small selection from the larger LIFERS Project, which documents people who have dedicated their lives to their passions. Each image is a one-of-a-kind tintype, hand-poured and developed on site at the time of exposure, giving every portrait a depth and physical presence that modern photography rarely captures.

The LIFERS Project began in skateboarding and has since expanded to encompass a range of action sports, with subjects who share a similar mentality — chasing their passion through different seasons of life. For Salt Born, that lens turns to surfers and watermen, whose identities are shaped by a lifelong relationship with the ocean. The portraits aim to reflect that history and character through a medium as enduring as the subjects themselves.

Following the opening, the show continues through the weekend with a live tintype pop-up at Whalebone on Saturday, August 29th, and Sunday, August 30th. Visitors will have the opportunity to sit for their own tintype portrait, watching the process unfold in real time — from plate preparation to exposure to development — and take home a piece of photographic history that's entirely their own.

Salt Born runs August 28th through August 30th at Whalebone in Montauk, NY.

Event Details:

• Opening Reception: Friday, August 28th

• Live Tintype Pop-Up: Saturday, August 29th & Sunday, August 30th

• Location: Whalebone, Montauk, NY