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[Washington Street, Boston] - Early photography, Public domain image
Summary
James Wallace Black (American, 1825–1896)
The albumen silver print is a photographic printing process that was widely used in the 19th century. It involves coating paper support with a mixture of egg whites and salt, which creates a glossy surface to hold light-sensitive silver salts. The paper is then sensitized in a solution of silver nitrate, and exposed in a camera or under a negative. After exposure, the print is developed in a solution of gallic acid and silver nitrate, which reduces the silver salts to metallic silver and creates the final image. The albumen print process was widely used for commercial and fine art photography in the 19th century and produced high-quality, detailed images with a distinctive glossy finish.
Born in 1825 in Francestown, New Hampshire, James Wallace Black was a pioneering American photographer, best known for his aerial photographs of Boston taken from a hot air balloon in 1860. Black began his career as a portrait photographer in Boston in the 1840s and later became an accomplished landscape photographer, capturing the scenery and architecture of New England. In 1860, Black teamed up with Samuel Archer King to take a series of aerial photographs of Boston from a hot air balloon. The resulting images, published in the Boston Journal, are considered some of the earliest and most important examples of aerial photography. Black continued to work as a photographer throughout his life and was also involved in the development of photographic equipment and processes. He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1896, leaving behind a legacy as one of America's most important early photographers.
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