Princess Street with the Walter Scott Monument,

ca. 1846

Through their exploration of the calotype, Hill and Adamson continued to develop the recently invented photographic process, delving into the aesthetic potential of what was still a new medium in the 1840s. Together, they created more than three thousand images, including Princess Street with the Walter Scott Monument, which captures an iconic landmark in Edinburgh, Scotland. To make this negative for a calotype print, a piece of paper was coated in silver nitrate, loaded into a camera, and then exposed for up to ten minutes, allowing the silver nitrate to react to the light in order to capture the image. The negative, as seen here, was placed on top of another photosensitized piece of paper in order to create a positive image.