The field of maneuvers in Châlons-sur-Marne 1857

This photograph of the Châlons-sur-Marne military camp was made by Gustave Le Gray, using the wet collodion process. It's a technique that demanded patience and precision, coating a glass plate with chemicals, exposing it in the camera while still wet, and then developing it immediately. The final print on paper gives us this stunning vista. The tonal range feels expansive; this is partly due to the combination of two negatives: one for the land and one for the sky. As you can imagine, this kind of image making took time, expertise and resources. Photography was still quite new, in the 1850s, but was already being deployed as a tool of documentation. Here, it's put to the service of the French military. There's an irony, of course, that such a technically complex and laborious process was used to represent a site of intense activity, filled with soldiers and equipment. This wasn't instantaneous photography by any means. Consider this photograph as a study in contrasts: technology and tradition, labor and leisure, art and militarism.