Oldest Photograph Of People Drinking

Oldest Photograph (Calotype) Of People Drinking “Edinburgh Ale”, 1844, Edinburgh, Scotland. The world’s first photograph of men drinking beer.

Calotype, also called talbotype, was an early photographic technique invented by William Henry Fox Talbot of Great Britain in the 1830s. In this technique, a sheet of paper coated with silver chloride was exposed to light in a camera obscura; those areas hit by light became dark in tone, yielding a negative image. The revolutionary aspect of the process lay in Talbot’s discovery of a chemical (gallic acid) that used to “develop” the image on the paper – i.e., accelerate the silver chloride’s chemical reaction to the light it had been exposed to.

In this image, you can see friends enjoying a cold one and posing for this calotype image. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Describes it perfectly:

“A timeless ritual – a jovial meeting over beers – is perfectly rendered by the photographic team of D. O. Hill and Robert Adamson. In the seemingly impromptu snapshot, a mirthful Hill has just risen from the table to stand by George Bell, the surgeon turned social reformer, who almost manages to keep his cool. The writer and renowned stained-glass artist, James Ballantine – in a try at seriousness – clutches a book, but struggles to suppress a laugh, while Adamson, operating the camera, remains outside the frame …”

It is still heartwarming to see the oldest photo of people just enjoying each other’s company.