Photographic Process 3.0: The Albumen Process

In part 3.0 of our photo process series we're looking at the Albumen Process. We're exploring the invention of the process and talking with our curators and historians, who help us put these processes into historical and cultural contexts.

The Albumen Process

  As the predominant print method in the 1850s-1890s, the albumen print process introduced the rise of the great industrial photographic houses. Egg whites were a primary step in the Albumen process, therefore the earliest albumen-printing operations often had many chickens on site. Albumen photographs were precise, detailed, cheap and widely distributed. The albumen print brought photography into the beginnings of mass production and consumption. Up next The Woodburytype, The Platinum Print, and The Gelatin Silver Print.