Gezicht op Château de Marlagne te Wépion before 1867

This print, “Gezicht op Château de Marlagne te Wépion,” was produced by Ghémar Frères using a photographic process. The image is sepia-toned, a popular choice in early photography for its warmth and stability. Photography in this era involved a complex interplay of chemistry and optics. The photographer wasn’t just capturing an image; they were also a skilled technician, preparing and manipulating materials to achieve the desired result. This print would have begun with coating a glass plate with a light-sensitive emulsion, exposing it in a large format camera, and then developing and printing the image onto paper. Think about the social context, too. Photography was a relatively new technology, and images like this one offered people a glimpse into places and lives they might never experience otherwise. It democratized image-making but it also changed the perception of what a picture should be. The amount of labor embedded in this image, from the production of equipment and chemicals to the photographer’s time and expertise, is considerable. Looking at this print, we can appreciate not just the image it captures, but also the history of photographic processes.