Brady's National Photographic Galleries

Brady’s galleries smelled like wet collodion and stale cigars, he’d haul his camera gear through hotel rooms and down muddy roads just to catch a politician or general mid-sentence. He taught himself to coat glass plates in sticky chemicals so fast his hands stayed blue for days. A customer once wrote on the back of a portrait: “This man looks alive,” and that was the whole point.

Try his Guy Little Theatrical Photograph; the actor’s face is caught between two emotions, like a stage light flickered for half a second.