STUNNING pictures have given an insight into life in China more than 100 years ago – taken by a Scot who travelled with a portable darkroom.
A new retrospective of pioneering photographer John Thomson, often credited as the first photojournalist, showcases some of the earliest photographs of China during the Qing dynasty.
Born in Edinburgh in 1837, Thomson (below left) was inspired by his brother who lived in Singapore and worked as a photographer.
During his time as an apprentice to an Edinburgh optician in the 1850s, Thomson undertook evening classes at the Watt Institute and School of Arts, as Heriot-Watt University was known, from 1852 to 1885.
He travelled to Singapore in 1862, whereupon his passion for photography took him across East Asia, capturing people and places in Siam (now Thailand), Cambodia and various provinces of China during the Qing dynasty’s rule.
Employing the wet collodion process for developing pictures, he travelled with cumbersome crates, glass negatives, a portable darkroom, as well as highly flammable and poisonous chemicals. Thomson is credited with bringing a strong aesthetic sensibility to his photography, contrasting with the stiff and wooden pictures typically associated with early portrait images.
Julia Stephen, a curator at the university, said: “At a time when photography was still quite unusual Thomson’s photographs are particularly remarkable.”
The exhibition is on display at Heriot-Watt University until March 25, 2022.
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