The Amateur’s Eye

The photograph as a source of historical evidence is a persistent topic of debate. Is a studio portrait an authentic reflection of the individual, or does it tell us more about the photographer or even the era in which it was taken? Studio photographers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries tended to reflect Victorian-era values by creating images of proper subjects, who often appear formal, even lifeless, at times, posed against a stock background. This was, in part, a direct result of the technological limitations of early photography, which required subjects to remain motionless for the length of exposure, up to several minutes at a time. The resulting cabinet cards and cartes de visite, which abound in archival repositories across the United States, display individuals within a carefully