James Wallace Black

Happy Birthday James Wallace Black!! This American photographer born 1825 began as a painter but moved into photography. Black was quite experimental in his subjects as well as vantage points. Black pioneered the slide projector with a candlelit projector. He was the first photographer to shoot an aerial view of a city, photographing Boston from a hot air balloon in 1860. The technology was quickly put to use by the Union Army on the Confederacy. Boston as the Eagle and the Wild Goose See It is the resulting photo below, an albumen (coal) silver print from a glass negative.