Collection of Middle Eastern silver albumen prints by Félix Bonfils

And when you think of the effort involved with the making each of those images, mixing the chemicals to sensitive the glass plate on site, pouring or "flowing" the plate in a dark tent, setting up the camera and exposing the plate (with only experience to guide you as to an exposure time, no light meters then) and then developing and fixing the plate almost immediately as you couldn't leave it for long. If the exposed plate was left to dry before developing the image was lost. Then making sure the plate was packed safely so it didn't break in transit ... I feel tired just thinking about it.
 
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