The portraits reflect that. Most soldiers were photographed using tintypes, which, Zeller noted, required an exposure of anywhere from three seconds to, on a really cloudy day, 20 seconds.

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery will present “From Shadow to Substance: Grand-Scale Portraits During Photography’s Formative Years” June 20 through June 7, 2026. Drawing from the museum’s ...

On cowboy portraits: I never really liked taking portraits when I started photography. I thought those were just posed, stated, easy-to-do, non-documentary, non-photojournalism works.

Photographer Andrea Gjestvang spent six years documenting the lives of bachelors in the Faroe Islands, a remote archipelago with over 107 men for every 100 women.