[Edward Charles Barnes] 1860s

This photographic portrait of Edward Charles Barnes was made by John and Charles Watkins. Though we don't know the precise date, it would have been made using the wet collodion process, which dominated photography from the 1850s onward. The process involved coating a glass plate with chemicals, exposing it in the camera while still wet, and then developing it immediately. This required a portable darkroom tent, which the Watkins brothers would have had on hand. Photographers had to be both artists and chemists, manipulating materials with precision and skill. The resulting print, like this one, would then be adhered to a card for durability and ease of handling. Wet collodion allowed for mass production of images. This brought portraiture within reach of a wider public and transformed visual culture, with studios like the Watkins becoming important sites of production and commerce. The material legacy of this process, like the tonality visible in this image, is a reminder of the labor and ingenuity behind early photography.