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Full Moon Warren De La Rue, 1857	Collodion Landscapes
	It was not long after FSA gave his collodion process freely to the world, that he made it abundantly clear as to how he would earn a living from it. Although he now classed himself as a photographic artist, he had no intention of becoming merely a jobbing portrait photographer like many others of his ilk. He wanted to support his wife and three young daughters by following a different path entirely, along the highways and byways in search of artistic landscapes and history. His days of representing the human form in clay or plaster were over. He would now use the canvas of the landscape painter and transform it into the new artform of photography. In the years which followed the discovery of the collodion process, Archer chose to demonstrate its powers himself, by embarking on what must have been a very heavy schedule of travelling to almost every corner of England and Wales in order to take images of well-known historic buildings or scenic views. His photographic output was somewhat varied and extremely puzzling; and begged the question, how did FSA decide on his subjects and their location? The subjects he photographed included a confusing and eclectic set of views: e.g. ‘Tintern Abbey’ in Welsh Monmouthshire (1852), a ‘Study in Perspective’ (1854), ‘Old Houses in Warwick’ (1854), ‘Rochester Castle’ in Kent, a ‘Walnut Tree’ at St. Donats, Glamorganshire (1855), the ‘Thames near Brentford’ (1855), a Mill on the Usk (1856) and the Chapter House, Jervaulx Abbey (1856) in Yorkshire His subjects were not only varied in nature, ranging from medieval castles and abbeys, to arboreal still lifes, to riverside scenes to artistic techniques; but were located sometimes hundreds of miles apart, far away from London. Why was this? Surely it would have been easier to travel nearer to home? The answer to this perplexing question lies in FSA’s past; to the time he attended the Royal Academy of London’s schools. It was here that he met the greatest artist of the age - Joseph Mallord William Turner; and transformed the art of landscape drawing into the new medium of landscape photography
Collodion Sunspots, 1870 Lewis Morris Rutherfurd Total Solar Eclipse, 1869 John Adams Whipple	Collodion to the Solar System
	Although FSA’s collodion process was widely used for portrait and landscape photography, it was its successful application to astronomy, which proved to be its most important achievement. The Archer Testimonial Committee made mention of the contribution Archer’s collodion process had on astronomy, when it said in its final report: ‘Mr. Warren De la Rue exhibited to the Astronomical Society, November, 1857, photographs of the Moon and Jupiter, taken by the collodion process in five seconds, of which the Astronomer Royal (Sir George Airy) said: ‘...that a step of very great importance had been made, and that, either as regards the clusters of stars, nebulae, and planets, or the self-registration of observations, it is impossible at present to estimate the value.’ We can now answer this question, first posed over a century and a half ago and describe how FSA’s collodion impacted our knowledge and understanding of the universe in which we live. Although photography had been used previously to take Daguerreotype images of the Moon, sunspots, the solar spectrum and bright stars; their poor sensitivity and long exposures produced poor quality results. It was not until the introduction of the collodion process from 1851 onwards, that any further progress could be made; only then did mankind see for the first time a detailed and permanent representation of the vastness of the universe above our heads. And in particular: Images of our Moon, which showed in great detail its magnificent crater pitted surface; its steely grey maria possessed of romantic names such the Ocean of Storms, the Sea of Rains, the Bay of Rainbows and the Marsh of Decay; and its rugged high mountain ranges and deep valleys; Spectacular views of the spots on our Sun’s surface; a surface once thought to be perfect, free of any blemishes; remembering that only through specially adapted telescopes could they be seen at all; Photographs of the planets in our solar system were made possible for the first time; albeit requiring the use of a magnifying glass to see the ice caps and ‘seas’ on Mars, the belts of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn; Stars so faint that they could not be seen with the naked eye; objects that lay at such enormous distances that their light would takes tens or more years to reach us; Solar and Stellar spectra showing the ‘rainbow’ of their colours and the many dark lines across their surface; lines that revealed what these objects truly were; now permanent records to study and measure away from a telescope in the warmth of a room away from the cold.
	Extracts from 'The Collodion Chemist', the forthcoming biography of FSA by Stefan Hughes
Great Comet of 1882 Collodion Photograph, Unknown Photographer	Collodion to the Stars and Beyond
	FSA’s collodion was not yet done with the stars. It was used to do much more; for it put the first steps on a path which led to the beginning of mankind’s understanding of the structure and composition of our universe. It did not just take photographs of stars that were invisible to our eyes; and then use them to measure their positions and movements in space; it also captured for the first time their ‘rainbows’ FSA’s collodion process had trod the first steps of a long path which led to the classification of stellar spectra; from which astronomers were able to develop theories not only for the composition of stars; but also, in our understanding of their evolution from the moment of their birth through to their very end. FSA’s collodion process played an important role in this great period of astronomical research; and in particular the beginnings of the new science of Astrophysics. This was in fact FSA's true legacy to the world.