Hello and welcome to all.  My name is Andrew La Roche and I live in Waukesha, WI, just outside of Milwaukee.  About 5 years ago my wife did a wonderful thing for me, she involved me in my first Civil War reenactment, and I was immediately hooked.  I have always been interested in history, but this let me be involved like never before.  After my first reenactment, I started thinking, this is great, but where do I fit in.  Many reenactors are soldiers, or they have a trade of some sort, who was I?  After a little thought, it came to me.  Since 2005, I have been a wet-plate photographer. 

Photography has been a long time interest of mine.  I have been a successful photographer since 1996, mostly in black and white.  Everyone should have something they are passionate about, and for me it is photography.  My full time career is in Website Design.  Currently I am doing more project management than design, but I wear many hats in my current role.  My hobby of black and white photography has turned to wet-plate photography.  This is now my passion.

I have created this website to help let the world know that I am here, and also to help me get to know the world.  A way to let all of us talk together using the forum.  I am always interested in learning new things and from what I have heard, so is everyone else.  Since I am located in Wisconsin I have been unable to find many others in the midwest who are wet-plate photographers.  I have relied on a lot of information being emailed to me by others, mostly on the east and west coasts.  Maybe this website can help better communicate with everyone.

I would like to help make a website for all wet-plate photographers.  Currently this website will respond to www.civilwarphotographer.net and also www.wetplatephotographer.net (or .com).  I have considered creating a completely seperate site using the wetplatephotographer.net domain for just the forum.  Then it could also have a gallery area for active users, and an events list (similar to my events list on this website) to allow active users to let everyone know what events are available, or even seminars, anything about wet-plate.  You can visit my contact page to let me know your thoughts.  There are many capabilities I could provide, I am just looking for what people might want.

Thank you for visiting, and I hope this can become a resource that everyone can visit more and more.