Cleveland Museum of Art

Shimla

Date

1865

Medium

waxed paper negative

Culture

England

Department

Photography

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Before digital photography, most cameras yielded a negative, an image in which the tones are the reverse of those in the original subject. Early photographers shot on sheets of paper that were waxed to make them more translucent, then coated with a light-sensitive solution and exposed in the camera. To create a positive image, light was passed through the negative onto light-sensitive paper, which was developed in a series of chemical baths to create the print. Simla, a town in the Himalayan foothills, became the summer capital of British colonial India in 1864.

The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.