Caroline Douglas

Caroline Douglas

‘The chloride of silver answers perfectly, 25 October 1835’, 2024, unfixed lumen print on fibre paper, 16 x 20 inches (framed), from Experiments concerning the Transmission of the Chemical Rays of the Solar Spectrum through different Media.

This photograph is part of a larger series of work re-visiting, re-enacting and re-touching marginal histories of early photography. Scottish Polymath Mary Somerville’s (1780–1872) protophotographic experiments of 1835 were first published as Expériences sur la transmission des rayons chumiques du spectre solaire, à travers différents milieux in Comptes rendus. Made in an age before photographic images could be fixed (rendered permanent), her photochemical experiments exist today only in written word. 

This work re-enacts Somerville’s chemical and optical experiments, producing a physical encounter that offers an insight into the perception and experience of colour before the so-called ‘invention’ of photography in 1839.