Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (French, 1765–1833), Untitled 'point de vue,' 1827. Heliograph on pewter, 16.7 x 20.3 x .15 cm. Gernsheim Collection, purchase, 964:0000:0001, Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin

In the nineteenth century, travelers could purchase photographs to commemorate their journeys, but those with cameras could also capture their own images. Given the cost of early photographic equipment, and how quickly it evolved during the nineteenth century, amateur photographers had to be wealthy and interested in new technology. Early apparatuses were cumbersome and complicated to use. When Joseph Nicéphore Niépce took the world’s first photograph in 1826, he needed an entire day of sunshine to develop the image on a glass plate. 

Niepce’s original process built on the camera obscura by projecting light onto a plate coated in light-sensitive chemicals to fix the resulting image rather than merely projecting it. Developments in photographic processes following Niepce’s innovation utilized glass plates covered in an emulsion of collodion and silver nitrate. Silver is sensitive to light, so when the plate is exposed, the image is fixed in black and white on the plate. The photographer thus obtains a negative, which can then be developed into paper prints, called positives. Known as a “wet-plate” process, collodion silver photographs had to be coated, exposed, and developed all before the plate could dry, making it complicated for amateur travelers.