December 24: Icicles on Stob Binnein (Binean), January 1908

Icicles on Stob Binnein (Binean), January 1908 (RMA-S-464B). A quarter plate (4.25×3.25 ins.) film negative from the Robert Moyes Adam Scottish Landscape Photography Collection.

Robert Adam was the photographer at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh from the 1910s until he retired in 1949. In his holidays he would travel round Scotland photographing the scenery, wildlife and the people, this forming a unique record of landscapes and livelihoods that have changed or even disappeared.

Film negatives replaced the fragile and heavy glass negative in the 1890s, light sensitive emulsion being coated onto a flexible plastic-based strip. Initially the film came in large sizes to match the large format cameras so that photographers could change to the new without changing camera.