This albumen print on the left shows two ladies in 1860s hoop skirts teasing a photographer. It was taken from an album of amateur photographs marked as having been made in Mt. Savage, Maryland.

Below is a tintype of three young women posed with a large studio camera. The cryptic writing reads "The Three Damnid" or "Danmid" Wilhemina Greek Slave & Damnid or Danmid"

Perhaps they were referring to the Danaïds, daughters of Danaüs in Greek mythology painted by Burne-Jones. "Greek Slave" seems to be a reference to Hiram Powers famous stature but these young ladies are certainly more completely dressed than she! Wilhemina has defeated us as an art history reference but maybe it is the name of one of the young ladies.

Below is one of our treasures. It is a collodian negative/positive lantern slide. As with ambrotypes and ferrotypes when the creamy collodian image is viewed against a dark background it appears positive. A little Photoshop magic has combined an inverse image with the paper matt that tells us it was made in 1873 in Belvidere, New Jersey. It names the young men (it appears that the young women did not rate naming), H. W. Hazard and John C. Browne. We have found reference to a 19th century photographer named John C. Browne but we have not been able to identify an H. W. Hazard.

The camera peeks out of the matt on the left side but the dark tent, buckets, and other supplies give us a delightful window on what was involved in an afternoon of photographing in 1873.