Crystal Palace Photographic Deparment

These photographers worked inside the Crystal Palace, that giant glass greenhouse in London that doubled as a photo studio in the 1850s. They posed sitters under skylight like a sunroom séance, waiting for the long exposure to finish before the subject’s eyes stopped looking like ghosts. Their Portrait of a Woman shows a woman in a dark dress—her face sharp, her collar stiff—caught just before she could blink. Drop into Gallery Tiles on that one photo; the blur around her hat brim tells you everything about the patience it took to make it.