Ladder Street

Thats an amazing photograph Annelisec.

1870 No visible buildings or vegetation on the Peak.

Early photography techniques too - Did you know a lot of early photographs required huge amounts of egg white (Albumen) to process them, and egg production was a huge business for just that purpose.

As the chemical technology advanced it was soon left behind. However from what I recall this was also part of the reason why early photographs could not capture moving objects.

Or something like that! Im sure the photography boffins can explain it all better...

So the boy on the RHS must have moved during the shutter release, and hence his ghostly image is repeated behind him.

For the same reason the figures you can see like the temple guardian must have been standing very still. Carriages could pass and not be captured at all!

Anyway I digress.

This image is a very graphic account of what the earliest days of Victoria must have been like. Hard, dusty and dirty...

Early photographs required long exposures, which is why the subjects can move, even by the 1870s, outdoor exposures were measured in seconds, and indoor in minutes.

The glass plate negative had to be sensitized in a darkroom immediately before use, and exposed while the plate was still wet, ie less than 10 minutes. So you needed a tent or covered wagon to act as a darkroom on site.
Dry plates came into use in the 1880s, which were much more convenient.

The Albumin process is used to make the photographic print, the egg-white is the medium that holds photographic chemicals on the paper. (Now we use gelatin.) 
The developed negative is held next to the paper and left in the sun until the printed image is dark enough, then the image is fixed with another chemical.   

see : Collodion process, albumen paper 

Thanks for the clarification Marlowe!

I am told this photo is of the Man Mo Temple in Hollywood Road.

Yes, that's right. If you scroll up to "Places shown in this photo: ", you'll see both Man Mo Temple (the building on the left), and Ladder Street (the staircase on the right) are listed.

Regards, David

Thanks, I must update myself on the roads and lanes in Central.