“Photography and Exploration.” Lithograph from A History and Handbook of Photography. Courtesy of Merrill-Cazier Library. 

“Photographing under Difficulties.” Stereo-view by A. J. Russell. Courtesy of Oakland Museum of California. 

A. J. Russell’s developing box and darkroom wagon. Cropped view of a large-format photograph by A. J. Russell. Courtesy of Oakland Museum of California.

Photographers of this era took images onto collodion wet-plate negatives. While this process was more reliable than daguerreotypes, it still required hard work, skill, patience, and a bit of luck.

Within roughly one hour a photographer needed to create the glass-plate negative, expose the negative in the camera, and then fix it in a traveling darkroom. The equipment was heavy and cumbersome. In 1869 a young William Henry Jackson, who was not unused to hard, physical labor, often wrote in his diary of being tired and worn out after a day of shooting negatives.

Having bright, sunny days and getting clean water were also critical. Jackson obsessively described the quality of the light, and noted the difficulties of windy days that got dirt and sand onto the sensitive negatives. Even experienced photographers with assistants could only take ten to fifteen images in a day.

Source: New York Public Library. Manuscripts and Archives Division. William Henry Jackson Papers. Diary, June 22–September 27, 1869 (MSS 1541)