In 1910 George Mallard, an amateur photographer living in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, used a 5 x 7 view camera and produced dry plate negatives. One hundred and thirty of his glass plates have survived to tell his story, and by 1918, he was using a box camera and Kodak roll film . By 1920s the glass negative was no longer in use and passed into history.
The Hancock County Historical Society
The dry glass plate negative.
George Mallard’s photographs represent the closing years of the glass plate negative. An exposure process that bridged the gap from the early photographic pioneers of 1860 to the industrial age of manufactured films and cameras that made it easy for anyone to be a photographer.
"If the collodionized plate, after sensitization in the silver bath, is exposed whilst still moist, the process by which the image is obtained, is called the Wet Collodion process; whereas if the sensitized plates are dried, and used afterward at any indefinite time, the process of the operation is denominated the Dry Collodion process."
The Silver Sunbeam, Towler, 1864, n.p.
George Mallard and Family in 1910
Railroad Ave. & Union St. March 7, 1912
Regatta, Bay St. Louis
No. 5 crossing the Bay, March 16, 1912
Knife Sharpener, Bay St. Louis
Woodman Parade July 4, 1912
Bay St. Louis Post Office March 7, 1912
Italian Parade, May 1918
