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Here we have an example of photojournalism before photojournalism was entirely practical. It would still be a few decades before thehalftone process made it efficient and therefore cost-effective to print photographs and text side-by-side. In this…

This carte-de-visite of Métis leader Louis Riel provides an example of how a photograph of a political figure circulates information and ideas. Riel led the Red River Resistance in 1869-70, and then negotiated the terms of Manitoba’s entry into…

The title page of A System of Phrenology boasts that the volume features “upward of one hundred engravings.” Photography had been discovered by the time the book was published, but the dominant processes of the time (the daguerreotype and the…

The Aurelian: A Natural History of English Moths and Butterflies was created by English entomologist and artist Moses Harris. The book’s title page explains that its pictures were “drawn, engraved and coloured from the natural…

Life is among the most famous of the twentieth-century picture magazines, and some of the century's most iconic photographs were published in its pages. This first issue of Life, from 1936, features a photograph by Margaret Bourke-White on its cover.…

This poster promoting Hoffman’s Novelty Circus provides an example of the halftone process used in advertising. Notice the grid pattern across the surface of the image, showing how dots were printed closer together or further apart to achieve…

Kodachrome was one of the first widely-used colour films, introduced by the Eastman Kodak Company in 1935. Here, Kodachrome film was used to create colourful pictures of the Canadian Rockies. Printed as postcards, the pictures were sold as souvenirs…

This panoramic photograph was created from three different prints, as we can see from the seams between the photographs.For another example of a panoramic photographic, see the group portrait of plumbers and steamfitters.This album is part of…

The practice known as spirit photography pushes the limits of what we consider photographic by seeking to represent the spiritual, rather than the physical and visible, on the photographic plate. The practice of spirit photography also points towards…

Hoofs, Claws and Antlers of the Rocky Mountains by the Camera documents a trip through the Rocky Mountains, with an emphasis on the animals encountered (and hunted) along the way. The publication provides a good example of an early use of the…