Rangoon: Patent Slip 1855

Linnaeus Tripe made this photograph in Rangoon, using the wet collodion process on a glass plate negative. The image shows a boatyard, full of timber; a boat is perched high on stilts. This photographic process, though capable of capturing incredible detail, was laborious. Each glass plate had to be coated, exposed, and developed immediately, before the emulsion dried. Tripe worked in challenging conditions, lugging his equipment through the Burmese landscape. The image itself documents a site of labor and construction. The textures of the wood, the rough ground, and the simple structures all speak to the physical effort required to build and maintain boats. The "patent slip" itself, a kind of marine railway, represents an early form of industrialization, promising efficiency in shipbuilding. Tripe’s photograph invites us to consider the intersection of manual work and technological advancement in 19th-century Burma. It is a reminder that every image, like every object, is the product of a complex web of materials, processes, and social contexts.