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Arthur James Melhuish
Thames Street, Windsor
1854-1856
Salted paper print
38.2 x 49.0 cm (image)
The Royal Collection
RCIN 2100349
LL/90909
Photograph of Thames Street in Windsor with the Castle Wall and Curfew Tower on the left and the facades of buildings and shops on the right.
Thames Street must have been alive with traffic and pedestrians when this photograph was taken, yet we are presented with an unnaturally empty scene. This was one of the problems encountered when using the relatively insensitive waxed paper process which required lengthy exposure times. Moving objects were not still long enough to be imprinted on the negative and, therefore, became invisible. This created one of the paradoxes of early photography: images appeared to be accurate in terms of their detail, however, the technology used undermined the truth of the representation.
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