Amoy Harbour 1869

John Thomson made this albumen silver print, “Amoy Harbour,” using a process that was cutting-edge at the time but now seems wonderfully archaic. The chemical process involved coating a glass plate with light-sensitive emulsion and then using that negative to print onto paper coated with albumen—that’s egg white, essentially—which gives the print its characteristic sheen and sepia tone. The image shows us a bustling scene of global exchange, with ships at harbor. Thomson was among the first photographers to document far-flung locations. It's easy to overlook the labor involved in producing photographs like this; each print required careful preparation and handling, a real counterpoint to the seemingly effortless capture of a scene. Thinking about the making of this photograph allows us to consider the relationship between the technology of photography, the global economy, and the social context in which this image was produced and consumed.