The Temple of El-Karnak, from the Southeast

This image of Karnak attempts to capture a broad view of this elaborate temple complex near Luxor, Egypt. Francis Frith’s photograph is unusually large for this period of time. In the foreground, undulating piles of crumbled stone are punctuated by an enormous fallen obelisk while the massive columns of the Great Hypostyle Hall are in the distance. With the long exposures early photography required, architecture was an ideal subject for practitioners such as Frith. Yet, photography was also a cumbersome process. One had to use a large view camera on a tripod, with bellows and various adjustments. Further, the negatives had to be coated, exposed, and developed on the spot, made all the more difficult by the extreme desert conditions of heat and blowing sand.