Albumen print, composite image, 1857
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This albumen silver print was made by the photographer Gustave Le Gray in the year 1857. Although at first glance it looks like nothing more than an image of waves crashing at shore under a stormy sky, there is actually more to it.
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2020-11-21T19:15:17-08:00
This albumen silver print titled The Great Wave, Sète was made by the photographer Gustave Le Gray in the year 1857. Although at first glance it looks like nothing more than an image of waves crashing at shore under a stormy sky, there is actually more to it. What we are seeing isn’t simply one image, but a composite image made of two different negatives. During the time period that this image was taken in, the photographic chemistry component of images had its limitations. As Le Gray set his exposure to focus on the waves and capture their detail, the sky would in turn be completely overexposed making it seem empty. When Le Gray would set his exposure to focus on the sky and capture the stormy clouds, the waves and shore would fade, leaving a silhouette. To solve this complication, Le Gray decided to take two negatives, one where he focused on the waves, and the other where he focused on the sky. He then took the negatives of these images and printed them together, juxtaposing them at the horizon to create the image we see now. This technique allowed Le Gray to showcase a final print that depicts what the human eye sees in comparison to what the camera could capture. This process allowed photographers to improve images and make them have that completed balanced look. While such techniques received some backlash for being “fake” and “unauthentic,” in a way this represents the start of what we now recognize as Photoshop.
