Salt and Silver: early photography 1849-1860

Fascinating exhibition at Tate Britain looking at an early photographic technique, salt prints, which are the first photographs on paper that still exist.

The first room looked at the technique and the early adopters such as Fox Talbot. I loved the pictures of Newhaven fishermen and town people by Hill and Adamson which really seemed to capture a moment.

Later rooms looked more at subject matter starting with modern life as how better to capture the here and now than with the latest technique.  This included the photographs by Edouard Baldus of French landmarks and Thomas Keith’s picture of the Crimean War, the first war to be photographed.

Next was looking at the epic and the use of photography to record things that most people couldn’t see like Egyptian temples. I loved Charles Clifford’s pictures of Zamora Cathedral which had very similar cropping to Monet’s picture of Rouen Cathedral. When looking at all the photographs it was interesting to think about what art was doing at the time and was about to do partly a result of photography.

The final room looked at portraiture. I was fascinated by a picture by Fenton of a man with shell shock from the Crimea. It was also interesting to see how quickly a new art form starts recording nudes! In theory the pictures were taken to help artists and see different aspects of a model but part of me asks “really”!

 

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