Albumen Print From Wet Collodion Negative Gallery

Temple of Ramesses II, Abu Simbel, c. 1860s. Creator: Antonio Beato (British, c. 1825-1903)

Temple of Ramesses II, Abu Simbel, c. 1860s. Du Camp was the first photographer to depict the marvels of ancient Egypt. In 1849 a scholarly association commissioned the young writer to document Egyptian monuments and their hieroglyphics. He learned to photograph shortly before embarking for Egypt in the company of the young novelist Gustave Flaubert. In 1852 Du Camp published an album of photographs of Egypt, Nubia, Palestine, and Syria, which brought him widespread recognition. Just as Du Camp followed in the footsteps of earlier painters and scholars,later photographers like Beato often echoed his choices of subject matter

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The Pyramids of Saqqara, from the Northeast, 1858. Creator: Francis Frith (British

The Pyramids of Saqqara, from the Northeast, 1858. Frith was the first photographer in Egypt to successfully use the wet collodion process, introduced in 1851. Its glass plate negatives yielded sharper, more detailed images than paper ones. He even created mammoth plate prints, as this size is called, which required equally large glass plate negatives. Pursuing the process's exacting chemistry in Egypt's scorching sunlight was trying. Frith sometimes sought refuge in tombs for the cool air and darkness to process his plates. "Pushing myself backwards upon my hands and knees, into a damp slimy rock-tomb . . . I prepared my pictures by candlelight in one of the interior chambers. . . . The floor was covered . . . with an impalpable ill flavored dust, which rose in clouds as we moved; from the roof were suspended groups of fetid bats."

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Sand Dunes, Carson Desert, Nevada, 1867. Creator: Timothy H. O'Sullivan (American, 1840-1882)

Sand Dunes, Carson Desert, Nevada, 1867. Timothy H. OSullivan's Civil War experiences prepared him for the hardship of serving from 1867 to 1869 as photographer for the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel. Led by geologist Clarence King, the expedition's goal was to map and describe a strip of land along the 40th parallel in California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. This territory coincided roughly with the route of the railroad that would link the east and west coasts in 1869. Here, OSullivan recorded the elusive shifting dunes near Sand Springs, Nevada, including the mule-drawn ambulance he used to transport water necessary for his darkroom. OSullivan's work was less picturesque than that of his contemporaries, using light to define form rather than for dramatic effect. Most significantly, he compressed space by focusing on the textures in both the foreground and background, which resulted in a unified visual whole

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