A note from the filmmakers:
Nothing lasts forever. The pigment processes were invented to address problems of fading in albumen prints. Making a photograph permanent is a reoccurring theme throughout the history of photography. The pigment processes, created over 150 years ago, achieved a level of permanence in their images that even surpasses the modern processes we find today.
This chapter also introduces one of key movements in the artistic developments in photography, the pictorialists. It’s leaders, Alfred Steglitz and Edward Steichen, worked to elevate photography so that it was accepted as an art form. As a bonus, this chapter features one of Stieglitz’s cameras, which was given to George Eastman House by Georgia O’Keeffe.