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from the group: Wet Plate Collodion

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Notes on this view:

This negative features portraits of two different individuals. To save time and money, wet plate photographers offten utilized cameras manufactured with multiple lenses or a movable back or lens. Multiplying cameras allowed photographers to maximize the number of exposures made on a single wet-plate, thus lowering the cost of producing portraits. While this negative features just two exposures, extreme versions of the multiplying camera were used in the production of small tintype portraits called gems, and could make up to seventy-two portraits on a single 4x5 inch plate. In the case of this negative, the photographer would have printed these portraits on the same sheet of paper and then cut them apart to produce two separate prints.