1851 Englishman Frederick Scott Archer in his report to the United Kingdom Academy of Sciences and to the Paris Academy of Sciences presented his invention of the wet plate process. This new photographic method reduced the time of taking pictures to a few seconds enabling photographers to experiment with moving objects and allowing them to make the photographed subjects look more natural. Ambrotype quickly became the rival of daguerreotype because it proved to be easier and cheaper. Hundreds of photographers, armed with bulky cameras and mobile photo labs, embarked on worldwide travel, hoping to bring home images of exotic places captured on glass plates.

1860 British photographer Francis Frith organized three photo expeditions to the Middle East. In his diaries he described the difficulties that he had to face. Emulsion boiling from heat, him losing consciousness from inhaling ether vapors trapped in his small tent…, but the results of these trips surpassed all his expectations. Frith published several illustrated books that the British welcomed with great enthusiasm. Pictures that first appeared in these publications were than for many years used in various travel guides and directories for these regions.

2010 Today, one hundred fifty years later, a Moscow photographer Misha Burlatsky once again wants to use the wet plate collodion process to take a series of photos of the Holy Land. He believes that this authentic photographic method will adjust the picture taking in modern Israel to the rhythms of the mid 19th Century, and ancient lenses together with the shooting conditions close those of Frith will allow him to see this Ancient Land, that has been represented so many times both on film and canvas, in a completely new way.