Developing 120-Year-Old Cat Photos Found In A Time Capsule

A Youtuber has found a time capsule with glass negatives from around the 1900s in and it turns out that it's not just the modern-day internet that loves cat photos!

27 Feb 2020 10:28AM by Nikita Morris | Specialist

Like 0

Add Comment

YouTuber Mathieu Stern, who's well-known for playing around with vintage lenses, has recently found a time-capsule in his family's old home and inside it were two glass plate negatives Mathieu decided to develop.

From looking at the other objects in the box, as well as how the negatives were produced, Mathieu dated the time-capsule to the 1900s and was eager to see what the negatives would reveal once printed.

MPB puts photo and video kit into more hands, more sustainably. Every month, visual storytellers sell more than 20,000 cameras and lenses to MPB. Choose used and get affordable access to kit that doesn’t cost the earth.

Sell the kit you’re not using to MPB. Trade in for the kit you need to create. Buy used, spend less and get more.

Buy. Sell. Trade. Create.

Mathieu uses one of the oldest methods for printing photos which is Cyanotype and you can watch the whole process in the video above. Once complete, the two 120-year-old negatives reveal photos of cats which should be no surprise really as after all, you pop a photo of a cat on the internet nowadays and your 'likes' go through the roof so there's no reason why they wouldn't have been just as popular way back when.

For more vintage-inspired content, take a look at Mathieu Stern's YouTube Channel.

Developing 120-Year-Old Cat Photos Found In A Time Capsule:

'Cat Photo' from the 1900 time-capsule (captured from Mathieu Stern's video)

Support this site by making a Donation, purchasing Plus Membership, or shopping with one of our affiliates: Amazon UK, Amazon US, Amazon CA, ebay UK, MPB. It doesn't cost you anything extra when you use these links, but it does support the site, helping keep ePHOTOzine free to use, thank you.

Other articles you might find interesting...

Hand-Crafted Wooden Pinhole Cameras Coming To The Photography Market

Eco-Friendly 35mm Film Canister

Impossible Black And White Hard Colour Frame Film

Comments

lemmy 16 2.9k

4 Mar 2020 2:09PM

Like 0

Fascinating but he didn't develop the glass plates, he printed them! How quickly knowledge of things past is lost. Developing the plates would have been a whole lot more complicated and tricky but also it is unlikely the negatives would have remained in a developable condition for all that time.

You must be a member to leave a comment.