Louis Jacques Dagerre’s daguerreotype method didn’t last long as it only produced a unique image that could only be duplicated by using a camera to take a photo of the original. In 1850 a man called Fredrick Scott Archer (1813-1857) developed the wet collodion method which was a long process which required a dark room. The process is simple: a bromide, iodide, or chloride is dissolved in collodion. This mixture is poured on a cleaned glass plate, which is allowed to sit until the coating gels but is still moist. The plate is then placed in a silver nitrate solution, which converts the iodide, bromide, or chloride to silver iodide, bromide or chloride. Once the reaction is complete, the plate is removed from the silver nitrate solution and exposed in a camera while still wet. The plate loses sensitivity as it dries, requiring it to be coated and sensitized immediately before use. It must also be developed while still moist, using a solution of iron sulfate, acetic acid and alcohol in water.
The collodion process produced a negative image on a
transparent support (glass). This was an improvement over the calotype process,
invented by William Henry Fox Talbot, which relied on paper negatives, and the daguerreotype,
which produced a one-of-a-kind positive image and could not be replicated. The
collodion process thus combined desirable qualities of the calotype process and
the daguerreotype.
The 1850’s was a time of the great exhibition, which
displayed the wonders of industry and manufacturing from around the modern
world. An idea developed from queen Victoria’s husband prince Albert. In 1854 a man called André Adolphe-Eugène
Disdéri patented his invention, the carte-de-visite
photograph or calling card. At nine-by-six centimeters, cartes were
primarily portraits, about the size of a conventional calling card and soon
just as popular. Disdéri established his photographic practice with the
manufacture of these tiny photographs; he divided a single glass plate negative
to make ten different exposures and then printed them simultaneously. The
carte-de-visite could be seen as an early Victorian networking method.
A French photographer called Nadar used the wet collodion process which
allowed people to promote themselves for the first time in portraiture. His
photographs have an element of voyeurism as the subject avoids our gaze, as if
she gives us permission to look. The process also enabled people to express
themselves bringing emotion and exploring what it is to be human within the
romantic period of the late 1950s.
In 1841 a census was conducted to
establish the number of professional photographers operating in London and
there were only three. 10 years later another census was done and the number of
professional photographers had increased to 51. After another 10 years period the
number of professional photographers had risen to 2,534 mostly likely due to
the introduction of the wet collodion process.
Born
in Lyon, France, in 1797, Antoine-Jean-Francois Claudet settled in
London in 1827. After a period as a successful glass merchant, he learned
the daguerreotype process from Daguerre himself. Claudet purchased the first
Daguerreotype licence in England and established his own photographic studio on
the roof of the Adelaide Gallery, behind St. Martin's church, London, from 1841
to 1851, later moved to 107 Regent Street. He brought several technical
improvements to the Daguerreotype process, including new sensitizing materials,
exposure times and focal improvements, and is credit with the discovery that it
was possible to develop prints under a red light, as well as the use of painted
backdrops. He was appointed photographer to Queen Victoria in 1853. This image
is a daguerreotype using the stereoscopic technique that is produced by two
cameras spaced to imitate human binocular vision. In a special viewer, the two stereoscopic
images appear to be a single three dimensional scene. 
This
photograph Roger Fenton (1819 - 1869) Cookhouse of the 8th Hussars
shows soldiers gathered around each other. Fenton was very selective about the
photographs he took not showing the horror of war. Roger Fenton valley of the
shadow of death was had been set up which was quite controversial at the time
as it was seen as deceptive.
Due to the
wet collodion process’s poor contrast, Gustave le Gray a French photographer
used composites made up of two different negative to get the correct exposure o
from the sky and the sea. 
In the 1850s
death was present everywhere due to the spread of colera and therefore there
were many photographs taken which capture death. Henry Peach Robinson was an English pictorialist photographer best
known for his pioneering combination printing joining multiple negatives to
form a single image. The
photograph shows a young girl on her deathbed surrounded by her family.
Early example of spiritual photographs
are shown in the work of john Adams, showing hypnotism which countered the idea
of relying on reasoning and evidence. Other example of the spiritual and supernatural
are seen in the work of William Mumler One of Mumler's most famous
photographs apparently shows Mary Todd Lincoln with the "ghost" of
her husband, Abraham Lincoln.
Imperialist notions
of European superiority and global control nourished the interest in collecting
and classifying information about human bodies. The camera was a powerful
instrument for measurement and surveillance. Photography
from john lamprey shows a Malayan male being photographed as a means of
classification. At the time Victorians thought of these people as half way
between animals and human which reflected the ideologies of the times.
Thomas Annan was a Scottish photographer, notable for being the first to record the poor housing conditions of the poor. These sorts of photographs gave risen awareness of people in poverty and because charities were set up to help people in need.
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