The Edwardian Photographer

By David Chalmers

Colonel James Harrison was an explorer and a photographer but you have to remember that photography back in his day was very different technology. 

The invention of photography was 1839 and this involved using silver nitrate, and it was a quite a drawn-out process, however, the technology rapidly evolved so by the time Harrison was exploring Africa in early 1900s the technology will have evolved to what’s known as dry plate.  So dry plates were glass plates which were pre-sensitised and coated in a factory this meant they could be stored safely and they could be transported to your location ready for exposure. You still had to carry heavy glass plates and heavy equipment such as a box camera, dark slides, heavy lenses and a tripod of course. But the great advantage was the plates were light sensitive and dry, which meant they could be exposed in the camera, then stored safely afterwards in another box and be processed later.

I suspect Harrison will have a used a laboratory in England and / or maybe even his own dark room and developed and processed the glass plate negatives. Once a negative had been developed, he could then make his photographic prints from that negative. One down side to the dry plate technology was it was orthochromatic; this meant the light sensitivity was reduced in that it was only sensitive to blue and green wave lengths. In our days the black and white emulsions are panchromatic meaning they’re sensitive to the complete colour spectrum but I feel this gives a certain charm to the Harrison photographs because you notice all the skies are bleached white because of the limited tonal scale of the emulsion. 

About the Author

David Chalmers is a professional creative photographer, based at Woodend, Scarborough, whose style has gained him commissions from Saatchi and Saatchi to Scarborough Museums Trust. With over 30 years in the advertising photography industry, he is also a practicing artist with arts council funding running workshops in salt and carbon printing. www.davidchalmersphotography.com