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Art Museum

Medium: Photography

Collage of nine different images that represent different types of photography that can be found in the GVSU Art Museum collection.

Photography has come a long way in its almost 200-year history, from the camera developing from a plain box that took hours to create blurry images to the high-tech devices in today’s smartphones and digital cameras. When photography arrived in the United States in the early 19th century, it allowed ordinary people the ability to make and own images in a way that had previously only been available to the rich. Photographers suddenly became a part of the story of an emerging nation, documenting the country’s changing cultural and physical landscapes.

Early cameras worked more like projectors, projecting a reversed image through a small opening onto an opposite surface, a natural phenomenon known as camera obscura or pinhole images. Such devices were used through the 16th century to study optics and astronomy when new lens technology allowed for brighter and sharper images.

This early technology could not become a photographic image until the use of light-sensitive materials, such as bitumen, became part of the process. Many scientists played a role in the development of using light-sensitive materials to record images that eventually led to the first photograph being developed by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826. It was made on a polished sheet of pewter covered in bitumen. The sheet was exposed to light for days, creating areas of unhardened bitumen that could be removed with a solvent, leaving behind an image, the first recorded photograph.

Browse Photography in the Collection

Daguerreotypes

Black and white daguerreotype photographic portrait of a man from the chest up. Metal case border around the image.

Ambrotypes

Black and white ambrotype photographic portrait of two seated women. Some hand coloring visible on their clothing including bright pink shirts.

Tintypes

Black and white tintype photograph of two seated men in nearly identical outfits that include wide brimmed hats.

Cyanotypes

Blue cyanotype image of a young boy in the bathtub with a octopus and boat toy.

Cartes de Visite

Black and white cartes de visite photograph of a man in a long dark jacket next to a sack of sanitary flour.

Cabinet Cards

Black and white cabinet card photographic portrait of an albino woman wearing a dress, leaning against a prop log with leaves.

Real Photo Postcards

Black and white real photo postcards of women seated in a circle- or is it the same woman reflected?

Film and Dry Plate

Black and white photograph of three women sitting on a porch.

Contemporary

Brightly colored photograph of a closeup of an orange flower with lots of petals.

Header Images

Left
David Lubbers, Win Trails, Leland, Michigan, silver gelatin print, 2020.33.29.
Sarah Wong, Authentic Self: Suus, photograph, 2018, 2024.21.3.
Artist Unknown, Untitled (Portrait of a Woman), ambrotype with case, ca 1865, 2020.1.204.

Center
Douglas R. Gilbert, Bob Dylan Daytime Performance at Newport Folk Festival, Newport, Rhode Island, silver gelatin print, 1964, 2018.48.850a.
Darlene Kaczmarczyk, Ties That Bind: Park Ranger, durachrome print, 2003, 2021.79.21.
Joyce Tenneson, Ranunculus, archival pigment print, 2020, 2021.85.10.

Right
Patty Carroll, Planty, digital archival print, 2016, 2021.73.6.
Artist Unknown, Untitled, snapshot, ca. 1960, L11.2022.279(43)
Claudia S. Liberatore, Untitled, hand-colored photographic print, ca. 1980, 2020.21.90.
 

Page last modified May 20, 2026