All photographs from the 19th century are strange but some go way beyond that. When photography arrived on the scene in the 1830s, scientists realized it could reveal secrets from the invisible worlds of microscopic bacteria and distant galaxies. Some believed the camera could go further and the surface image alone would uncover information about the internal workings of the body and the mind, even the moment of death. Forget post-mortem and spirit photography, the most extreme photographs from the 19th century were taken by scientists asking serious questions about the nature of existence. Usually, it meant a lot more than setting up a camera in front of a subject. They often had to design and build their own equipment to take shots others considered technically impossible. Sometimes, the results provided valuable information, in other cases their camera proved more important than the images produced and still others were filed away, left for others to find and wonder what on earth the photographers thought they were doing.
)
