Gezicht op de ruïne van Tantallon Castle before 1866

This photograph of Tantallon Castle was made by Thomas Annan, using a process called Albumen printing. This technique, popular in the 19th century, involved coating paper with egg white and then silver nitrate, making it sensitive to light. A negative was then placed on the paper, and exposed to sunlight until the image appeared. The resulting print has a distinctive warm tone and fine detail, thanks to the way the silver particles embed themselves in the egg white. The labor is distributed between the photographer, the workers who prepare the chemicals, and the women who separate eggs and prepare them for coating. While photography is often seen as a mechanical process, the albumen print reveals the hand of the maker, and the social context of the image. Considering the materials, making, and historical context allows us to appreciate the image not just as a representation, but as a cultural artifact embedded with layers of meaning.