Gezicht op Unter den Eichen te Bad Harzburg c. 1855 - 1880

Laurentius Herzog made this photograph in the late 19th century, likely using a glass plate negative and printing it on albumen paper. A skilled darkroom technician would have been needed to make a photograph of this quality. Look closely, and you’ll notice this isn’t just one image, but two side-by-side. This is a stereograph, a popular form of entertainment at the time. When viewed through a special device, the two images would merge to create a three-dimensional effect. Mass production photography was enabled by new industrial techniques. This changed the experience of encountering images, making them more widely available. Beyond entertainment, photographs like these were also powerful tools for documenting the world. They helped shape perceptions of different places and cultures, contributing to both knowledge and, potentially, to social division.