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Dark tents and dark boxes


 
LL/34880
 
The wet-plate photographer’s burden. Before the dry-plate revolution, pioneers had to carry their entire chemistry lab into the field. Explore the ingenious portable tents and boxes that allowed explorers to coat and develop glass plates in the world’s most remote and hostile environments.

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Follow the Portable Lab.

Contents

Introduction
1Introduction to dark tents and dark boxes
Examples
2Dark tents and dark boxes
3Photographs of dark tents, dark boxes and photographers in the field
4A surviving example of a dark tent
Contemporary accounts
5Contemporary accounts of nineteenth century dark tents
6Sources on nineteenth century dark tents and dark boxes
Photographers using dark tents and dark boxes
7Carleton E. Watkins (uncertain): #925 Spring Valley Water Works
8William Henry Jackson: Photographing in High Places
9Francis Frith at the Temple of Dendara, Egypt
10Jackson Brothers (Omaha, Nebraska): Scenery of the Union Pacific Railroad - #192 Dale Creek Bridge
11John Burke: Fixing the Negative
12Contemporary dark tents and dark boxes

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