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in 1844, producing many fi ne images in Canton, Macau
and elsewhere in 1844 and 1845. Those images survive
as the earliest photographs ever taken in that country.
In 1845 he travelled to the Phillipines and Borneo—
he reportedly bought supplies of plates and chemicals in
Manilla—and later that year arrived in Egypt. A number
of fi ne images of the antiquities of Egypt survive from
his journeys in 1845 and 1846.
Returning to France in 1846, he continued to pursue
his interests in photography until the late 1850s. His
images were rediscovered in the late 1970s.
John HannavyITINERANT PHOTOGRAPHY
From the day the invention of photography was an-
nounced to the world, innovative photographers knew
that if patrons would not come to studios, then the studio
would have to come to them, and as such the birth of
the itinerant photographer occured.
Before the advent of the itinerant photographer,
several excursion were attempted where camera
manufacturers sent employees laden with supplies to
“capture” exotic locations of the world. Among this ex-
clusive community of patrons were to wealthy tourists,
writers and artists to which these photographers were
later “contracted.” Horace Vernet, Romantic painter,
traveled to Egypt in 1839 under the sponsorship of sup-
plier Lerebour to capture images that later sold as the
famous Excursions Daguerriennes aquatints. “We kept
daguerreotyping like lions,” he enthusiastically remem-
bered. In 1855, Roger Fenton and his “Photographic
Van” recorded ersatz camp life during the Crimean
War, and while in North America the earliest travelling
photographers were components of government expedi-
tionary, geologic, boundary and railway surveys. Many
itinerant photographers followed or branched away
from the growing networks of paths, roads and railway
systems. During the American Civil War, portraiture was
important as never before in family life, and itinerant
photographers in particular enjoyed a boom equal to
that of when photography was fi rst introduced. Lowly
soldiers seeing for the fi rst time itinerants travelling into
war theatres often dubbed the horse drawn studios as
“What-Is-It?” wagons.
The defi nition of an “itinerant photographer” or
“itinerant” remains one where a person ‘travels with
photographic supplies with the purpose of purveying
their trade and the intent of selling (and even barter-
ing) their photographic results to a hopeful populace.’
Itinerant photographers, whether previous apprentices
or self-taught, came from all walks of life and were of
both genders.
Some found that life on the road provided a good
income. Studio owners sometimes closed their city busi-ness for the summer and traveled to resorts and small
towns, setting up portable studios and darkrooms on the
outskirts of towns and villages. Others hired temporary
assistants to cover studio operations while they traveled,
or else sent the employee on the road to do predeter-
mined circuits—some with considerable distance and
need of time. Such travels however would not success-
fully happen until the existence of a viable portability
of the technology and its convenient use.
In 1851 the Englishman Fredrick Scott Archer in-
vented the wet plate collodion process. This quickly
supplanted both the daguerreotype and the calotype, as
photographers were now able to make infi nitely repro-
ducible negatives. Unfortunately cumbersome, the wet
collodion process required not only camera, tripod and
glass plates, but also chemicals, and a portable dark tent
practical enough to travel even by canoe, dog cariole or
elephant, as examplifi ed respectively in Canada, Scan-
dinavia and India. On location it was necessary to have
at least a barrel of “clean” water, as almost invisible
amounts of foreign matter in the silver nitrate bath would
invariably result in a blank plate. Frederick Hardwich’s
indispensable A Manual of Photographic Chemistry
Including the Practice of the Collodion Processes was
a common manual among English speaking itinerants.
The collodion’s light sensitivity—or lack thereof, and
the need for immediate preparation and use; as well as
existing optical properties of the camera, did deter its
early usage. In later years the reasonably fast exposure
times spurred many to promote “good expressions” and
encouraged patrons to “bring their children and babies
to be photographed.” Few itinerant photographers used
the wet collodion process other than for the making of
ambrotypes or more often the ferrotype also known as
“tintype.”
By the 1870s more light-sensitive gelatin dry plates
traveled throughout many parts of the world. Itinerant
photographers ceased to work with the old wet-plate
technology and thus reduced the bulk of necessary
paraphernalia. The pre-sensitized dry plates eliminated
the need for awkward chemical procedures and the
new sensitized papers all but ended the old chemical
technology.
Ironically, even with advancements in technology,
the photographers were often unaware of then-unknown
consequences of their craft. It is well recorded that early
photographers, and itinerants in particular, mentioned
“recouperating from unknown” illnesses or “affl icted
with very sore eyes”—a result of extended exposure
to chemicals under light-tight portable tents and other
housing contraptions with poor ventilation.
The practicality of transporting supplies on a trav-
elling circuit posed various problems. Most itinerant
photographers did not buy their supplies along the
way and few are known to have had depots along theirITINERANT PHOTOGRAPHY
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