Victorian Faux Snow Portraits

“Winter presented special technical problems for Victorian-era photographers; their chemicals did not always behave properly in freezing temperatures, and processes of the day were unable to capture snowflakes in mid-air. So what the photographers could not accomplish in nature, they simulated indoors, under their studio skylights. From shortly after the Civil War until the end of the 19th century, these winter tableaux were made in cities large and small– for a public that never seemed to tire of donning cold weather garb for a portrait with faux snow.”

- The American Museum of Photography

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Thank you to The American Museum of Photography