Woman at Toilette 1868

This photograph, "Woman at Toilette," was taken by Felice Beato in the late 19th century, using the wet collodion process. The magic of photography lies in its chemistry. This early technique involved coating a glass plate with light-sensitive chemicals, exposing it in the camera, and then developing the image, all before the plate dried. Look closely, and you can almost see the artist at work, manipulating the materials with speed and precision in a portable darkroom. Beato was one of the first photographers to work in Japan, documenting its culture for Western audiences. This image, carefully staged, catered to a Western fascination with Japanese women and domestic life. But the very act of capturing this image on a fragile glass plate, using a complex chemical process, speaks to the labor involved in constructing these exoticized views. It invites us to consider how photography, even in its early days, was a crafted medium, shaped by cultural expectations and the photographer’s own hand.