JEFF ROSENHEIM: The earliest photographers were combinations of artists, and merchants, and tonic salesmen.

NARRATOR: Look for the image of a photographer posing with his camera. It’s at the top of the circular arrangement.

ROSENHEIM: This is a wonderful small tintype of an anonymous photographer in his studio.

NARRATOR: With his top hat and checked pants, he’s dressed stylishly, even somewhat flamboyantly.

ROSENHEIM: This is an individual who is a performer. He’s a storyteller, a theatrical, somewhat comic figure with the cutting-edge technology of the day.

He’s revealing how a picture is made: it’s made in a camera.

NARRATOR: Here’s Siobhan Angus, assistant professor of media studies at Carleton University.

SIOBHAN ANGUS: This is a photographer posing with the tools of his trade. So he’s posing with this quite large format camera. So, there’s this self-presentation as a skilled laborer.

NARRATOR: Today, we tend to think of making a photograph as an easy thing to do. But in the 1800s…

ANGUS: It’s very hard to take a good photograph.

Really a photographer in this period is a chemist, right? Mixing chemicals, working with them. We go back and read photography journals, you know, people are writing really long letters explaining different processes they’ve tried, the outcomes that happen. It’s a really, really labor-intensive process and also really skilled labor.

ROSENHEIM: And often they were itinerant. They would just travel around the country and leave for points unknown and set up their studios. And they were part of a new age of image makers, a new culture of image producers, and were beloved members of the communities they served.