Dr. Hugh Welch Diamond

This man was one of the earliest photographers. He started out as a doctor and worked with mentally ill patients. He would take pictures of his patients for records but also claimed that he was using them for their treatment. But there’s not any evidence that he actually used them for treatment purposes. He also was the one of the founders of the Photographic Society. The society now days own rights to a lot of historic photos, equipment and books, and they also publish a photographic journal.

            A lot of the pictures of his patients are haunting in my opinion; they show the true and raw expressions and feelings of the patients.  Just looking at the pictures you can just see the pain that these people had to go through every day. I can only imagine what it would be like to live in an asylum as these people did.  I think that his documenting of patients is very historic in the fact that they not only showed emotion but they also showed how people in the 1800’s looked like and dressed.  And can also show some insight into how mentally ill people were treated back then.            The type of photographs he produced were called calotypes.  A calotype is process invented by Henry Fox Talbot, where paper is coated by silver iodide.  Then the paper is exposed to light and a picture is produced.