Museum Archives Research Articles

Свидетельство будущего: цифровой поворот в философии медиа и гибридном искусстве

The article provides an overview of several academic disciplines, such as the philosophy of media, theory of art, and visual studies for the analysis of transformation of visual knowledge and image in the digital era. The views of researchers are presented with attention to three largest traditions in the philosophy of media and visual studies — Anglo-Saxon, Russian, and German. During the review, three basic theses are proposed: 1) digital ontologies are close to “flat ontologies” in basic principles of ontology, where the most important is modularity, which cannot be reduced to either hardware or software; 2) the influence of digital era is reflected in the hybrid art, as a result of incorporate high technology and art; 3) the result of digital revolution can be considered as the distinction between analog and digital media. In this case, a new type of digital object (virtual) is understood as the difference between a copy and original work, a new variation of materiality.The prospects for further research on the role of digital objects and hybrid art are as follows: — One of the tasks is a critical analysis of the ontology of a digital object with attention to image productionin the context of postmodern art studies and philosophy; — The second task may be to study the works of new media with attention to the transformation of their institutional relationships, the role of Museum archives, and exhibition practices.

Uniform buttons within the context of the collection of the Waldes Museum of Buttons and Fasteners

The study deals with uniform buttons in the collection of the Waldes Museum of Buttons and Fasteners in Prague-Vršovice, which was founded at the initiative of Prague industrialist and philanthropist Jindřich Waldes. Over the course of the museum’s existence, from 1916 to 1945, the collection came to include more than 350 uniform buttons. This study tries to capture the significance of the collection at the Waldes Museum, both as exhibits in themselves, and as study material connected with the museum’s publication work or the building of a specialised archive and library on the other. It also presents selected exhibits from the collection in question, together with other associated objects and specialised materials. The study draws on expert consideration of the preserved collection, original publications and materials from the Waldes Museum Archive and specialised literature.

The figure of a woman in contemporary visual art of Ukraine

The article is focuses on topic of illumination of the image of women in the fine arts of Ukraine during the period of independence. On the basis of analysis and systematization of scientific sources and research of archival museum bases, the specificity of the female imagery in various art was described, namely: video art, painting, performative practices, as well as the state of processes related to the development and stagnation of feminist directed art in Ukraine. The projects overviewed are Tenderness by Olsia Ostrovska; Female and Oviposition by Hrytsia Erde; Lilit Community by Elia Parvulesku; as well as the video, created by Oksana Chepelyk along with prominent Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko Chronicles of Fortinbras. In their video work Life-time game Alina Yakubenko and Ksenia Hnylytska presented motherhood and housekeeping as the theme for computer game.

From the museum archive

From the museum archive

3D MODELLING OF THE MAMARI TABLET FROM THE RONGORONGO CORPUS: ACQUISITION, PROCESSING ISSUES, AND OUTCOMES

Abstract. Rongorongo is an undeciphered script inscribed on wooden objects from Easter Island (Rapa Nui) in the Pacific Ocean. The existing editions of the inscriptions, and their widespread locations in museums and archives all over the world today constitute a serious obstacle to any objective paleographical assessment. Thus, with a view to a potential decipherment, creating 3D models of the available corpus is of crucial importance, and one of the objectives of the ERC INSCRIBE project, based at the University of Bologna with Professor S. Ferrara as Principal Investigator. In this preliminary work, we present the results of the 3D digitization of the Mamari tablet, one of the longest inscriptions in Rongorongo, housed in the Museum Archives of the Congregazione dei Sacri Cuori di Ges`u e Maria in Rome. The tablet is made of wood, with a shiny reflecting surface, characterized by a mainly dark texture. The 3D modelling was carried out with the ScanRider 1.2 laser scanner manufactured by VGER, based on Structured Light technology, taking care to ensure the legibility of each sign while preserving the overall shape of the object as precisely as possible. To overcome the difficulties inherent in the object’s complex fabric, the Mamari tablet was acquired in separate sections (joined together during processing through specific markers), thus managing to optimize the optical parameters of the laser scanner, such as the exposure of the camera and the depth of field of the projector. Furthermore, an evaluation of the 3D reconstruction precision was also carried out, highlighting a precision of few hundredths of millimeters, in agreement with the claimed nominal standard deviation. In addition to the 3D model produced, one of the main results of this endeavor was the definition of a successful method to scan such complex objects, which will be replicated to finalize the complete 3D modelling of the whole Rongorongo corpus of inscriptions.

The Beginnings of Photography, the Beginnings of the Photography Archive: Bonfils at the Harvard Semitic Museum

The article highlights the creation of the Maison Bonfils photographic collection and its transformation into a museum archive by the Harvard Semitic Museum. On the one hand, it examines the archiving of reality through photographic practice and analyses the epistemological premises of documentary photogra¬phy applied to the object “The Holy Land.” On the other hand, it describes the transformation of the Bonfils collection into a corpus and its reception by the scientific community of the Ancient Near East. In both cases, we observe the im¬plementation of a literal conception: on the one hand, the geographical territory is interpreted as the perfect equivalent of the biblical text and, on the other hand, the photographs of this territory are used as an immediate and totally transpar¬ent document of the historical reality of the 19th century.

I’ll Be Your Mixtape

This article tells the story of a cassette tape housed in the Andy Warhol Museum Archives, a set of never-released (and rarely heard) songs by Lou Reed, and the tape’s intended audience: Andy Warhol. Warhol and Reed are giant figures in the history of twentieth-century Pop Art and popular music, and their collaboration from 1966 to 1967 resulted in the acclaimed album The Velvet Underground and Nico. Based on extensive archival research and interviews, I discuss how this tape reflects Warhol’s and Reed’s failed attempt to collaborate on a stage version of Reed’s album Berlin (1973); Reed’s reaction to Warhol’s book, THE Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) (1975); and how elements of Warhol’s own audio aesthetics and taping practices find their way into Reed’s recordings around 1975. I also place this cassette in the context of the emerging common practice of creating and gifting homemade mixtapes of curated music, and demonstrate how such mixtapes function as a type of “closet media” (to quote theater scholar Nick Salvato) marked by private audience, disappearance, and inaccessibility. Drawing on William S. Burroughs’s conceptual spliced-tape experiments and their challenge to unified subjectivity, I explore the epistemological and ontological ramifications of sonically entangling the self with another person, and the queer intimacies of doing so on cassette tape.

Australian message sticks: Old questions, new directions

Message sticks are tools of graphic communication, once used across the Australian continent. While their styles vary, a typical message stick is a flattened or cylindrical length of wood with motifs engraved on all sides. Carried by special messengers over long distances, their motifs were intended to complement a verbally produced communication such as an invitation, a declaration of war, or news of a death. It was only in the late 1880s that message sticks first became a subject of formal anthropological enquiry at a time when the practice was already in steep transition; very little original research has been published in the 20th century and beyond. In this article, the author reviews colonial efforts to understand these objects, as recorded in documentary and museum archives, and describes transformations of message stick communication in contemporary settings. He summarizes the state-of-the-art in message stick research and identifies the still unanswered questions concerning their origins, adaptations and significance.

The power of combined molecular and morphological analyses for the genus Botrylloides: identification of a potentially global invasive ascidian and description of a new species

Botryllids are colonial styelid ascidians for which morphological characters distinguishing genera and species are often difficult to identify and frequently ambiguous. Botrylloides perspicuus, Botrylloides giganteus, and Botrylloides pizoni have similar colony and zooid appearances and over recent years have been found in dispersed localities around the world. In order to determine how many valid Botrylloides species there are, and how they are geographically distributed, we performed both molecular and morphological analyses on fresh and archival museum specimens of these Botrylloides coming from six distant localities: southern Italy, southern California, Brazil, Galapagos Islands, New Zealand, and Australia. Moreover, we re-analysed the morphology of a number of formalin-preserved museum specimens. We concluded that both B. perspicuus and B. giganteus are indeed valid species and report morphological and molecular characters that distinguish these species; B. pizoni is concluded to be a junior synonym of B. giganteus. The geographic distribution, collection dates, and growth substrates of B. giganteus indicate that this species is rapidly spreading worldwide and has traits that may enhance invasiveness (i.e., presence in intertidal regions; high tolerance to air exposure, temperature and salinity variation). Therefore, B. giganteus should be a focus of both researchers and managers concerned with marine biosecurity. Interestingly, the morphological re-analyses of archival museum samples guided by molecular results, led to the taxonomic reassignment of several botryllid specimens as well as to the identification of a new species, Botrylloides conchyliatus sp. nov., which is here described. http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:0D896E42-F460-45E2-B74C-576A011D9214

Digitizing and Preserving the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum Archives: Stories of Compromises in a Challenging Environment

Digitizing and Preserving the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum Archives: Stories of Compromises in a Challenging Environment

Dzienniczek podróży Antoniego Edwarda Odyńca. Kilka uwag o pierwodruku i potrzebie nowej edycji

A journal by Antoni Edward Odyniec, written during voyages around Europe in the years 1830–1832, is an important source for the history of literature, from which both past and present researchers have gained knowledge on the lives of the journey’s participants. Readers are provided with fragments of text published in journals during the 80’s of the 19th century ( Notes from a journey to Paris and London by Antoni Edward Odyniec , „Klosy” 1889, no. 1246, 1247) and in the 30’s of the 20th century (S. Balinski, “See you in Lithuania”. From Odyniec’s travel journal , „Wiadomości Literackie” 1934, no. 1), as well as the first print of the whole in the form of a book, published along with other manuscripts of a collector Tomasz Niewodniczanski in 1989 ( Mickiewicziana in the collection of Tomasz Niewodniczanski in Bitburg , vol. 1: Letters of Adam Mickiewicz to Antoni Edward Odyniec and other addressees 1828–1852. “Travel journal” by Antoni Edward Odyniec 1830–1832. Letters and poems by Celina of Szymanowski Mickiewicz 1834–1848 , foreword by T. Niewodniczanski, introduction and edition by M. Danilewicz Zielinska, Warsaw 1989). For interested scholars there is also a manuscript, which is well-preserved and currently stored in the Royal Castle Museum Archives in Warsaw. This paper is aimed, on the one hand, at familiarizing readers with the history of the journal itself and its complicated history, and, on the other hand, at taking a closer look at its 20th century edition and making an outline of a new one. The article also attempts to answer the question of whether the available edition meets the expectations of a contemporary reader. Is it necessary to make a separate edition, which will also verify and supplement the literary commentary in the light of the present state of knowledge?

Population genetic structure in Fennoscandian landrace rye (Secale cereale L.) spanning 350\xa0years

Rye (Secale cereale L.) was for centuries the economically most important crop in Fennoscandia (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden). Historical records tell of a range of different types adapted to climate and varying cultivation practices. Genetic analyses of genebank maintained landrace rye have yet failed, with a few exceptions, to detect differentiation between rye types. Concerns have been raised that genebank material does not truly reflect the historical variation in landrace rye. In this study, we have therefore genotyped old and historical samples of rye as well as extant material. Two historical seventeenth century samples were obtained from a grave and a museum archive respectively, and 35 old samples were taken from 100 to 140-year-old seed collections and museum artefacts made of straw. We could confirm the results of previous studies suggesting Fennoscandian landrace rye to be one major meta-population, genetically different from other European rye landraces, but with no support for slash-and-burn types of rye being genetically different from other rye landraces. Only small differences in genetic diversity and allele distribution was found between old landrace rye from museum collections and extant genebank accessions, arguing against a substantial change in the genetic diversity during twentieth century cultivation and several regenerations during genebank maintenance. The genotypes of the old and historical samples suggest that the genetic structure of Fennoscandian landrace rye has been relatively stable for 350 years. In contrast, we find that the younger samples and early improved cultivars belong to a different genetic group, more related to landraces from Central Europe.

Merced County Courthouse Museum Archive

Research Article| February 01 2019 Merced County Courthouse Museum Archive Sarah Lim Sarah Lim Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar California History (2019) 96 (1): 82–90. https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2019.96.1.82 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Sarah Lim; Merced County Courthouse Museum Archive. California History 1 February 2019; 96 (1): 82–90. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2019.96.1.82 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentCalifornia History Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2019 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

On taphonomy: collages and collections at the Geiseltalmuseum

AbstractGerman palaeontologist Johannes Weigelt (1890–1948) was the first proponent of taphonomy – the study of the decay, burial and fossilization of plants, animals and other organisms across geological time. Thousands of his fossil specimens, many recovered from coal fields in central Germany, are stored within the Geiseltalmuseum – a palaeontological collection at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, founded by Weigelt in 1934. A significant portion of Weigelt's papers and extensive photographic production related to his taphonomic research are also within the museum's holdings. Amidst these documents, museum curator Dr Meinholf Hellmund and I discovered over forty photo-collages attributable to Weigelt. This visual essay exposes the through-lines between Weigelt's unpublished collages and his academic activities on taphonomy, suggesting the museum archive as a site of ideological fault lines crossing concomitant artistic and scientific production.

Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (June 12–October 1, 2017) (Exhibition Review)

<i>Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive</i> Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (June 12–October 1, 2017) (Exhibition Review)

Creative work of O. Bogomazov: new finds, research and attribution

Creative work of O. Bogomazov: new finds, research and attribution

Testicular structure and spermatogenesis of the oviparous goodeids Crenichthys baileyi (Gilbert, 1893) and Empetrichthys latos Miller, 1948 (Teleostei, Cyprinodontiformes).

The cyprinodontiform family Goodeidae comprises some 51 species, including subspecies, of freshwater fishes all of which are at risk or are extinct in the wild. It is classified in two allopatric subfamilies: the Goodeinae, endemic to the Mexican Plateau, and the Empetrichthyinae, known only from relict taxa in Nevada and southern California. The 41 species of goodeins are all viviparous and share a set of well-documented reproductive characters. In contrast, the recent species or subspecies of empetrichthyins are all oviparous and relatively poorly known, yet of critical interest in understanding the evolution of livebearing in the family. We previously described ovarian structure and oogenesis in empetrichthyins using archival museum specimens of females and here extend that study to males. Testicular characters of two species of empetrichthyins, Crenichthys baileyi, and Empetrichthys latos, are studied and compared directly with those of one species of viviparous goodeid, Ataeniobius toweri. The testis is a restricted spermatogonial type in both the Empetrichthyinae and the Goodeinae: spermatogonia are found solely at the distal termini of lobules, a diagnostic character of atherinomorph fishes. Morphology of the differentiation of germinal cells during spermatogenesis is similar in both subfamilies. In the oviparous C. baileyi and E. latos spermatozoa are free in the deferent ducts. In contrast, the spermatozoa of viviparous goodeids are organized into numerous bundles called spermatozeugmata, a characteristic of most fishes that practice internal fertilization. Differences between the goodeid subfamilies are interpreted relative to the oviparous versus viviparous modes of reproduction. Archival museum specimens are a reliable source of data on reproductive morphology, including histology, and may be the only specimens available of rare or extinct taxa.

Shooting at the Stars: the Christmas Truce of 1914 NCSS Lesson Plan

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore a true World War One event, the Christmas Truce of 1914. The paper is inspired by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) award winning book, Shooting at the Stars: The Christmas Truce of 1914 by John Hendrix, which narrates the truce through a fictitious letter from a British soldier. On Christmas Eve, German soldiers on the western front line, specifically near the Belgium border, ceased fire and invited British soldiers to celebrate Christmas. Descriptions of events derive from oral histories and photos collected from actual soldiers who experienced this unusual historic event. Design/methodology/approach This lesson engages students in inquiry centers focused on events, location, soldiers, remembrance, and primary sources to answer the question: Why did the First World War Christmas Truce of 1914 occur? Practical implications World War One (AKA the First World War and The Great War) classroom history studies typically focus on tragic components of, what many call, a needless war. Many lessons examine military technologies, political power struggles, horrors of trench warfare, disease and casualties. In essence, “World War I saw unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction. By the time the war was over and the Allied Powers claimed victory, more than 16 million people – soldiers and civilians alike – were dead” (history.com Staff, 2009). This lesson reveals a spontaneous, impactful, emotionally charged event occurring during the worst of times. The Christmas Truce of 1914 moves students from thinking about the ravages of war into thinking deeply about what it truly means to be enemies, friends or even to mend relationships. Who are soldiers – what do they feel, need, believe and miss? During the truce, the longing for peace and human interaction superseded political ideologies, for a while. This lesson starts with students participating in a class discussion to uncover prior knowledge of the famous event. Students examine their real-life feelings regarding personal truces, answer guiding questions while rotating through classroom research centers, and collectively create a generalized response to answer the compelling question: Why did the First World War Truce of 1914 occur? Students will apply their understandings of the event, location, and feelings associated with the truce by taking a soldier’s persona and writing a letter home. Illustrations and maps further engage students’ creativity. Social implications This true story about the Christmas Truce of 1914 reminds us that countries may have differing ideologies and political beliefs which cause conflicts, yet people, as individuals, find commonalities making them seek peaceful connections with one another. Originality/value “The soldiers of 1914 remind us of the choice we all can make: we can see others as humans who matter like we matter – even when they’re our enemies. They also show us what can happen when we make that choice: enemies can become friends and, at least for a moment, there is peace” (Arbinger Institute, 2017, Section 3). This quote embodies the lesson’s value, because it brings understanding to a personal level – soldiers on the field. First World War soldiers were typically powerless. For instance, as many as 250,000 boys under the age of 18 served in the British army during the First World War. Patriotic fervor, escape from poor conditions or hopes for adventure were motives for joining. Birth certificates were uncommon; war recruiters received money for each sign-on, so boys as young as 14 went to war. In this lesson, students examine First World War background information; analyze the truce’s events, geography, soldiers and memorials. Students are immersed in large numbers of resources including videos, music, photographs, maps, books, articles, newspapers, historians’ perspectives, oral histories, museum archives and the First World War soldiers’ original letters that help reveal the story and help students understand underlying feelings of soldiers and their families.

The Lady of Lijiang

Elise Scharten (1876–1965) was a pioneering Dutch missionary who translated texts into and out of the language of the Naxi people, a Chinese minority group living in the Himalayan foothills of Yunnan province. She was the first to translate the Naxi creation story into English, and the only translator of a western text into Naxi. Her legacy has, however, been overshadowed by the achievements of more prominent Naxiologists. Today, Scharten is almost completely unknown. Nevertheless, Scharten’s unique contribution to the transmission of cultural knowledge between westerners and the Naxi has been preserved in museum and library archives. From these sources we can build a clear picture of her importance to the study of this unique people.

The stereotyped vision of Greece: 19th century photographs in the Benaki Museum archives

To άρθρο βασίζεται στο πρωτότυπο υλικό που φυλάσσεται στο Τμήμα Φωτογραφικών Αρχείων και πραγματεύεται το έργο των ξένων φωτογράφων στην Ελλάδα του 19ου αιώνα. Μέσα από τη μελέτη των φωτογραφιών αυτών προκύπτει μια ομοιομορφία ως προς τη θεματογραφία. Οι περισσότεροι φωτογράφοι επέλεξαν να καταγράψουν με τον φακό τους τις ελληνικές αρχαιότητες. Παράλληλα, πέρα από αυτή τη θεματική ομοιότητα, αποκαλύπτεται μια διαφορετική προσέγγιση του θέματος από κάθε φωτογράφο. Στις 19 Αυγούστου του 1839 παρουσιάστηκε στη Γαλλική Ακαδημία Τεχνών και Επιστημών στο Παρίσι, η εφεύρεση της φωτογραφίας και συγκεκριμένα η μέθοδος του Louis-Jaques Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851), ο οποίος είχε καταφέρει να αποδώσει μια θετική εικόνα επάνω σε μια χάλκινη πλάκα. Κατά τη διάρκεια της ανακοίνωσης, ο Γάλλος ακαδημαϊκός François-Dominique Arago (1786-1853) δεν παρέλειψε να τονίσει τις πολυάριθμες εφαρμογές της "πρωτότυπης" ανακάλυψης. Συγκεκριμένα ανέφερε ότι «για να αντιγραφούν όλα τα ιερογλυφικά των μεγάλων μνημείων των Θηβών, τον Καρνάκ κ.ά, da χρειάζονταν 20 έτη και λεγεώνες σχεδιαστών, ενώ με τη δαγγεροτυπική μέδοδο ένα μόνο άτομο da μπορούσε να κάνει αντήν την τεράστια εργασία». Εμπνευσμένος από την ανακοίνωση αυτή, ο Γάλλος εκδότης Noël-Marie-Paymal Lerebours (1807-1873) εφοδίασε ταξιδιώτες με φωτογραφικό εξοπλισμό (δαγγεροτυπικές μηχανές) και τους έστειλε να καταγράψουν «τα πιο αξιοσημείωτα μνημεία τον κόσμον». Έτσι ξεκινά το ταξίδι των ξένων φωτογράφων στην Ελλάδα. Αψηφώντας τις καιρικές συνθήκες και το βάρος του φωτογραφικού τους εξοπλισμού, έφταναν στον ελληνικό χώρο με σκοπό να καταγράφουν, ακολουθώντας τις προκαθορισμένες διαδρομές των ταξιδιωτικών οδηγών τους, τα "αξιοσημείωτα" μνημεία του. Η Ακρόπολη, καθώς και τα μνημεία που την περιβάλλουν, αποτελούσαν απαραίτητο σταθμό τους, με αποτέλεσμα η πορεία τους να ακολουθεί το ήδη διαμορφωμένο από τους περιηγητές-ζωγράφους στερεότυπο εικονογραφικό πρόγραμμα, και στο έργο τους να μεταφέρεται η εικόνα μιας ιδεατής Ελλάδας που ταυτίζεται με αυτή της κλασικής αρχαιότητας. Το γεγονός αυτό ενίσχυε η περιορισμένη δυνατότητα του φωτογραφικού φακού, λόγω του μεγάλου χρόνου έκθεσης της φωτοευαίσθητης πλάκας, που καθιστούσε αούναττ] την αποτύπωση της κίνησης. Ανάμεσα στους πρώτους δαγγεροτυπίστες που ανέλαβαν την αποστολή του Lerebours, ήταν και ο Καναδός Pierre-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière (1789-1865). Ο Lotbinière, που ταξίδευε στη Μεσόγειο, επισκέφτηκε και φωτογράφισε για πρώτη φορά τις αθηναϊκές αρχαιότητες τον Οκτώβριο του 1839, δύο μόλις μήνες μετά την επίσημη ανακοίνωση της εφεύρεσης. Όπως αναμενόταν, η Ακρόπολη ήταν το πρωταρχικό θέμα που επέλεξε. Η δαγγεροτυπική μέθοδος δεν είχε τη δυνατότητα να παράγει πολλαπλά αντίτυπα, γεγονός που οδήγησε τους φωτογράφους να προτιμήσουν τη μέθοδο της καλοτυπίας, όπου με τη μεσολάβηση ενός αρνητικού μπορούσαν να εκτυπώσουν απεριόριστο αριθμό θετικών εικόνων. Ο διάσημος Γάλλος αρχιτέκτονας Alfred- Nicolas Normand (1822-1909) τράβηξε συνολικά 130 καλοτυπίες κατά τη διάρκεια της παραμονής του στην Ελλάδα. Μέσα από τον φωτογραφικό του φακό απαθανάτισε κυρίως την Ακρόπολη και τις περιβάλλουσες αρχαιότητες της. Τα χρόνια που ακολουθούν αποτελούν μεταβατική περίοδο για τη φωτογραφία. Η μέθοδος της καλοτυπίας αντικαταστάθηκε από την τεχνική του υγρού κολλο δίου και οι μεγάλοι χρόνοι έκθεσης της φωτοευαίσθητης πλάκας μειώθηκαν, προσδίδοντας στη νέα εφεύρεση ευκρίνεια, ευκολία στη χρήση και ανθεκτικότητα σε δύσκολες καιρικές συνθήκες, όπως το θερμό κλίμα της Ελλάδας. Την εποχή αυτή μια σειρά από γνωστούς επαγγελματίες και ερασιτέχνες φωτογράφους επισκέπτονται και φωτογραφίζουν την Αθήνα. Ανάμεσα τους ξεχωρίζει το έργο των James Robertson και Paul Baron des Granges. Αρκετοί ήταν και οι ξένοι φωτογράφοι που εγκαταστάθηκαν στην Ελλάδα. Χαρακτηριστικά αναφέρεται ο Carl Schiffer, πιθανώς βαυαρικής καταγωγής, που εργάστηκε στην Αθήνα από το 1859 έως το 1863. Προς τα τέλη του 19ου αιώνα όλο και περισσότεροι ταξιδιώτες-φωτογράφοι επισκέπτονταν την Ελλάδα. Η φωτογραφία είχε γίνει πιο προσιτή στους ερασιτέχνες, που έως τότε παρέμενε το προνόμιο των οικονομικά ισχυρότερων. Σε αυτό συνέβαλε και η κατασκευή της πρώτης εύχρηστης φωτογραφικής μηχανής από την Kodak, το 1888. Δεδομένου ότι η φωτογραφία πέρασε στη μαζική παραγωγή, το εικονογραφικό ενδιαφέρον άρχισε να αλλάζει. Το στερεότυπο της αποτύπωσης των αρχαιοτήτων έδωσε τη θέση του στις φωτογραφίες της σύγχρονης ζωής. Εμφανίζεται, δηλαδή, φωτογραφικό ενδιαφέρον για τα πολιτικά και κοινωνικά δρώμενα της Ελλάδας, παρά τις δυσκολίες που οφείλονται ακόμα στην αδυναμία της φωτογραφίας να καταγράψει με επιτυχία την κίνηση. Λόγω της ραγδαίας εξέλιξης που έχει γνωρίσει το μέσο με την πάροδο των ετών, η προσπάθεια που κατέβαλλαν οι πρώτοι φωτογράφοι φαίνεται να υποτιμάται. Μελετώντας κανείς τις εικόνες αυτές, σπάνια διακρίνει τις τεχνικές μεθόδους ή ακόμα και τη φαντασία που επενδύθηκε για την πραγματοποίηση τους. Παρά τη θεματική ομοιομορφία που χαρακτηρίζει τη φωτογραφία του 19ου αιώνα στην Ελλάδα, ο κάθε φωτογράφος μετέφερε στις εικόνες του το προσωπικό του ύφος, αποτέλεσμα μιας ιδιαίτερης διερεύνησης του χώρου.