Rocky Mountains on Wetplate Collodion 2025, by Canadian photographer Bill Hao, won 1st Place in Analog / Film Nature at the 2026 International Photography Awards and earned him the title of Analog / Film Photographer of the Year.
Hao built an ultra-large-format camera that takes 32 × 48-inch plates, fitted with a Goerz Red Dot Artar 47.5-inch lens, and exposes his images on huge sheets of glass using the wet-plate collodion process. Because each plate must be developed immediately after exposure, he converted a 50-seat tour bus into an off-grid mobile darkroom.
He has photographed the Rocky Mountains hundreds of times over the past decade. His plates may last for two hundred years, he notes, but some of the landscapes may not: they face wildfires, melting glaciers and tourism pressures. Hao uses the oldest form of photography to ask the world to protect what is still here.
More about the photographer: Bill Hao, Creative Profile
Official award record: International Photography Awards winners
The oldest process in photography can still deliver the most urgent message.
International Photography Awards, 2026 — Analog / Film Photographer of the Year; 1st Place, Analog / Film: Nature
