Faces, Space & Spaces

During the 1880s, the use of glass as a transparent and stable base for dry photographic emulsions replaced the collodion wet plate process. Glass was the first widely implemented medium used to create a transparent photographic negative. The end product became known as the glass plate negative and became obsolete as the camera and the photograph processes evolved over time. Commonly used into the 1920s, glass plates negatives prefigured the more durable, affordable, and familiar flexible film negative.

The Houston History Research Center (HHRC) is home to thousands of glass plate negatives capturing Houston and its citizens from the late 1800s. Although the majority of the images are an assortment of studio portraits, street scenes, and residences, other subjects and places are also represented. Selected from a variety of HHRC collections, the negatives reveal a visual cross-section of Houston citizenry and scenes representing the first century of the city's history. These distinctive negatives are rare, fragile, and irreplaceable historical artifacts. To safeguard against damage, we have taken some of these images and reproduced them in a contemporary light box installation illuminating the space.