Portret van twee meisjes, Kitty en Dina 1860 - 1880

Roelof Loots made this photograph of two young girls, Kitty and Dina, using the wet collodion process, sometime in the 19th century. What’s fascinating about photography from this period is the way it straddles the line between art and industry. The process involved coating a glass plate with light-sensitive chemicals, exposing it in a camera, and then developing the image – all before the plate dried. This required a portable darkroom tent, a considerable amount of skill, and a fair bit of toxic chemistry. The resulting albumen print, mounted on card stock, became a popular format for portraiture. Though technically reproducible, each photograph was still a unique object, imbued with the hand of the photographer, a far cry from the mass-produced images we're used to today. Looking closely, you can see the subtle tonal range and the incredible detail captured by the lens, reflecting both the artistry and the labor involved in its making, and also the sitters' social status. The material conditions of photography in the 19th century remind us that every image is not just a representation, but also a product of its time.