'I Have Seized the Light': A review of the significance of the miniature and the early portrait photograph to the colonist, c. 1840 - 1890

Abstract

It was a lightly overcast day in 1863. In a strange looking room with the walls and roof made entirely of glass on the top of a building in Collins Street, Melbourne, not far from the Post Office, an anxious couple were staring at a large box with a round covered window. A well dressed young gentleman with a slightly foreign accent busied himself behind it. He turned to them and may have said, 'Now just remain still for a little and think of your parents.' He reached round the front, removed the cover and replaced it. 'Thank you. We have seized the light from you and soon this little miniature will be on the next ship to London and then to your loved ones. I'm sure they will be impressed by your fine clothes which my camera has rendered in perfect detail.' A similar scenario was played out thousands of times between the late 1840s to the 1890s. Today, it is difficult to understand why the colonists would go to such a considerable effort and expense for something that many people can now do in their own home and instantly email the results to anywhere on the planet. ... The main question then to be answered by this study is - what was the importance of portraiture to the colonists?