The last time I posted some photographic history I was disappointed, I posted pictures of the first patented handheld camera, a 1886 Schmidt detective camera which I owned, only a handful are in existence worldwide, wow, I got two comments. Let’s try something different, here are some historic images of Yosemite National Park that were taken long before the photographic legend of the park Ansell Adams was born. I acquired some 8x10 glass plate negatives at an estate sale about 30 years ago, I contact printed these and photographed the print, here are the results. At the time of my find of course there was no Google but a friend of mine, the son of Imogen Cunningham, I am sure very few know who she was, he came to the conclusion that by the 2 initials on the plates and the location of the estate that the images were made by a French artist and photographer around 1890. He apparently came here to paint Yosemite and he would use his photographs to create his paintings, he never returned to France. I no longer own the original as a collector gave me a price I couldn’t refuse.
If you look at these, perfect composition, whoever he was, he was a great photographer and that with the primitive equipment available 120 years ago.
PS. Nothing was changed in PS, these are straight contact prints.