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Tales of Tourist Photos, Pt. 2*: Old “wet-plate” photography required glass negatives to be coated, sensitized, exposed, and developed in less than fifteen minutes. Using the dry-plate method, negatives could be prepared beforehand; Wilhelm Burger was among the first to use this in Japan.
*[Part 1]

Burger was photographer for the 1869 Imperial Austrian Expedition to East Asia, but illness allowed him to remain in Japan for the winter after the legation left. Tasked in part to photograph art objects, Burger visited the Kamakura Daibutsu with large glass negatives he prepared in Europe.

The handwritten inscription on the back of this photographic print reads, “This Image is all Bronze, name Diaboots.” “Diaboots,” or Daiboots, was the Yokohama treaty port vernacular for the Kamakura Daibutsu through the 1860s.

While Burger created a sizable portfolio of arts and crafts during the embassy, his photographs at Kōtoku-in in Kamakura appear more tourist-like than documentary. Here, several people pose for the camera, including what may appear to be Buddhist priests and three men in European attire.

To my knowledge, the people remain unidentified; Burger’s apprentice, Michael Moser, stayed in Japan after the embassy returned (and remained after Burger left). Moreover, Italian-born Felice Beato operated a successful Yokohama-based photography studio at the time – could either be seen here?

On his return to Vienna in 1870, Burger exhibited his Japanese portfolio to broad public acclaim. For more on Burger’s photographic process, see Tani Akiyoshi & Peter Pantzer’s “Wilhelm Burger’s Photographs of Japan,” PhotoResearcher 15 (2011): 40–50.

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