As a personal note, I currently work for a university archives where I am paid to look at old photos and digitize them. I'd be glad to talk about my experiences there if anyone has any questions.

This is a bit of a tangent, but my father and I were discussing it the other night...

Was Eadweard Muybridge christened with that spelling of his names, are they spelled so on his birth certificate, or did he change it in later life to be more unique?

It's quite well known that Stalin had photographs retouched to erase people from pictures who fell out of favour. Was such photo manipulation already used in the 19th century? I'm especially interested in political contexts, but maybe there were other reasons for it too?

Hi! I have a few questions to ask to get it started.

Who are some of the most famous photographers around the time?

How expensive was photography as a hobby?

How long did it take to produce an average photograph?

The Civil War is regarded by many as one of the earliest photographed armed conflicts. Were there prior wars with photographers?

How did the technology change between the 1830's and 1860's?

Was it dangerous to be a wartime photographer?

What are some of the earliest color photographs we have? How were they done?

Thanks for doing this!

I want to know about early photography and pornography! Are there any books or sources you would recommend I begin with? Particular photographers or areas that were known for pornography?

My understanding is that early photographers (1920's/1930's) like Weston, Strand and Steiglitz developed film under red light conditions like modern photo paper because it wasn't sensitive to red. Did older black and white techniques have the same restriction? What colours were they responsive to?

So in the very early days there seem to be all kinds of various kinds of photography, which co-existed. Daguerreotypes, Tintypes, Ambrotypes, etc.

What were the various pros and cons of the competing formats?

Was there anyone format that was considered obviously superior?

And of so, why didn't it take over as the sole format? Or was there pretty much one go to by, say, 1870?

So this might be a bit of a softball question, but doing an photo-centric blog I know that it might actually be a bit harder to decide on than it seems, so is there any one particular photograph from the era that you love more than the rest? And what exactly is the factor(s) that draw you to that one specifically?

• Early photography used to take some time for the image to set up. What technological changes occurred that helped to reduce the time it took for subjects to be imprinted on a negative?

• I know that during the Victorian Era, post-mortem photography was popular among the middle class. How many of these photographs still survive today? Obviously, you would do this before the actual burial, but were these photographs taken prior to the setting in of rigor mortis?

What was the process like for color tinting photographs back in the 19th century? How early back do we find examples of it being done?

Was it common/popular? Given that I assume it all was being done by hand, how expensive was it?

Would tinting mostly be done by the photographer himself, contracted out, or was this something that people would have done on the secondary market after getting a photograph?

When people talk about old photographs they often remark on how long people had to sit still. How long did people have to sit for a photograph and how did these sitting times change with the development of new camera technologies?

A bit late to the game, but I'd love to know about what people took photographs of. What photography immediately embraced for portraiture? If so, when did people start capturing landscapes or non-people subjects? What were the perceived advantages of photography over traditional portraiture mediums (silhouette, painting, etc.) besides novelty -- when did it become a price issue that photography was cheaper than hiring a private painter???

Many thanks!!!

EDIT: For clarity, I'm stuck on the fact that America's first indigenous school of painting was the Hudson River Valley school - - where landscapes, not people, were the primary focus. But there were some distinctly American portraiture practices, IIRC, as detailed in Margaretta M. Lovell, Art in a Season of Revolution: Painters, Artisans, and Patrons in Early America (Philadelphia, 2005)????? I have no recollection of what they were anymore though -- but I'd be interested to hear if they connect to early photographic portrait practices in the United States!!!

What's the earliest example of an aerial photograph? Did they take any photos from reconnaissance balloons prior to the First World War?