How Do They Know They Were Drinking Ale?

[rayg]

This photo from 1844, claims to be a photo of men drinking ale.
Were those standard ale glasses of the time? Might it be champagne?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edinburgh_Ale_by_Hill_%26_Adamson_c1844.png

Ray

 

[Tupperwolf]

Photography was extremely new in 1844. Around 1829-1830 was when the first (very grainy) photographs were made. That photograph has very good resolution for 1844. The subjects would have to be posed, and all in all taking a photograph was a very serious thing with lots of time and work involved. If the "artist" photographer calls it ale, I would tend to agree.

 

[Klutz]

It could be a lot of things, Absinthe was popular in the time period.
There must be some verbal account that was passed down and not noted in the Wikipedia account.

 

[StMarcos]

Well, it seems too pale to be a DCBVIP.

 

[Nightshade]

Photography was extremely new in 1844. Around 1829-1830 was when the first (very grainy) photographs were made. That photograph has very good resolution for 1844. The subjects would have to be posed, and all in all taking a photograph was a very serious thing with lots of time and work involved. If the "artist" photographer calls it ale, I would tend to agree.

This is the most plausible answer.
Photography was new, expensive and a time consuming process at that time.

 

[beergolf]

I teach a History of Photography class and have seen this photo by Hill and Adamson. In fact I showed it in class a few weeks ago. The Callotype process (paper negative) was invented by Talbot in England and announced in 1840 but he was doing it for a few years before that time. The image is very consistent with the quality of the time. I have seen prints in person from that time period and they still look very good. There were limitations with the process, such as blotchy areas in the print, but they had fairly good quality. Tupperwolf is right that the photogrpah had to be staged because the exposure times were very long at that time, so the subjects would have to pose and hold the pose for the duration of the exposure. The exposure, depending on the amount of light could be as long as several minutes.

Many years ago I taught a 19th. Century Photographic Processes class and did those old processes and know that this kind of quality is very possible with the technology of that time.

 

[Homercidal]

Perhaps the bottle on the table was unique and indicated a particular brand?