Untitled from the portfolio Souvenirs du Camp de Chalons

Gustave Le Gray

1857

An albumen print made from a wet‑collodion glass negative that records a mid‑19th‑century military encampment, with Le Gray aiming to capture both the scale of the manoeuvres and the subtle play of light across the plain.

You first notice the vast, empty foreground and low horizon, where a compact line of gun carriages and tiny human figures cluster beneath an immense, pale sky, giving the scene a quiet, documentary stillness.

Combining technical advances in the wet‑collodion process with a painterly sense of composition, Le Gray's image helped establish photography as a means to document modern life and the monumental scale of contemporary military spectacle.

Palette

Exhibitions

French Photographs: Daguerre to Atget

1945

Sixty Photographs: A Survey of Camera Esthetics

1940

Roots of French Photography

1949

Photographs Before Surrealism

1968