Jimmy Miller 1843 - 1847

This photographic portrait of Jimmy Miller was made sometime in the 1840s by David Hill and Robert Adamson, using a process called calotype. Unlike later photographic methods, calotype involved coating paper with silver iodide, exposing it to light in a camera, and then developing the latent image. The resulting negative was then used to create multiple positive prints. This use of paper gives the image a softer, more textured quality than you would find with photographs on metal or glass. Looking at Jimmy, we see that he is standing proudly, dressed in traditional Scottish Highland attire, complete with a kilt, sporran, and bonnet. The soft focus of the calotype lends a romantic, almost painterly quality to the image, making it look like a historical scene, even as it records a specific sitter at a particular moment. Hill and Adamson were pioneers in using photography as a means of social documentation, but in the case of Jimmy Miller, the photograph is a wonderful example of how early photographic processes were able to capture both individual character and cultural identity.