You can almost hear the photographer asking, “Where would you like to be for your photograph?” while going through scenic backgrounds like raising and lowering window shades. So they choose the sea air and crashing waves without the bother of going to the seashore.
But actually, they may have been at the shore on holiday! Tintypes like this one were frequently what was offered quite cheaply at beaches, resorts, carnivals, fairs and places where people went for a day’s entertainment or a few days way from home. Such studios may have been not much more than kiosks along the boardwalk or fairway, and having your “picture taken” may have been not much more than an impulse souvenir to take home. A frame might be offered at extra expense, but many were handed to the purchaser in a light paper sleeve with the portrait visible through an oval or rectangular cutout with printed border. Millions have survived in albums, boxes and drawers.
The tintype, or ferrotype, was invented by Hamilton L. Smith in Ohio in 1856. It is a collodion process, exposed wet in the camera on a thin iron (not tin) sheet that has been japanned (black varnished) so the negative image appears positive. Each photo is unique. Traveling photographers liked tintypes because they were cheap, light weight and not breakable. They were the most popular photographic medium with the masses during the second half of the 19th right through the first three decades of the 20th century. A tintype, as you can see, had very limited tonal range and low contrast. Most were quite small.
I have rebalanced the contrast without sacrificing the tonal range in this 1880s portrait (stiffly posed but better than the average example); the young woman looks pleasant but somewhat bored; the other has chosen to keep her pince-nez firmly on the bridge of her nose – the better to eye that shady photographer fellow; the gentleman may have a touch of heartburn from lunch.