[Unidentified Woman in Profile] 1866 - 1868

Julia Margaret Cameron made this photograph of an unidentified woman in the 19th century, using a wet collodion process. This was a relatively new technique at the time, requiring skilled labor to prepare, sensitize, expose, and develop the image on a glass plate, all within a short timeframe. Notice the soft focus and the way the light falls across the woman's face. This was no accident. Cameron intentionally manipulated the process, embracing imperfections and valuing the expressive potential of the medium over technical precision. The darkroom alchemy involved in wet collodion was labor intensive, and far from the push-button ease of modern photography. Cameron elevated photography from a purely commercial practice into an art form. By foregrounding the material reality of the process, she imbued her portraits with a sense of intimacy, and drew attention to the artifice of the image. Her approach reminds us that art is not just about what is depicted, but how it is made.