11 10 components of the apparatus, light, dust, humidity, and so on. In this sense, the liquid phase of photography anticipated an experience of image-making open to experimentation, variability, uncertainty, and chance. In its early period, before being co-opted by corporate capitalism, photographic practice offered its users (or perhaps those with access to its use) an experimental and open field of participation, one that might even be described as a kind of “photographic commons.” In this respect, early photography bears a certain resemblance to the early stages of the internet, before it was fully overtaken by digital capitalism, when it still prioritized participatory and collaborative forms of creativity. Within this space governed by trial and error, play and experimentation, users could potentially assume the roles of inventors and innovators. A figure such as Louis Sabuncu, the Ottoman Court Translator of the Inner Chamber and a figure who might be described as a nineteenth-century Ottoman polymath, for instance, was able to obtain patents in England and France for photographic technologies.8 The early, fluid phase of photography can be said to possess a kind of “liquid intelligence,” shaped by the variability and uncertainty it contains. Much like today’s artificial intelligence, which can generate data in ways that are sometimes unintelligible or unpredictable even to its designers, the liquid intelligence of early photography also carried a certain degree of autonomy and independence. In wet processes, chemical reactions, optical distortions, or deviations introduced by any of the shifting variables could determine the final image and its texture, potentially disrupting it entirely or, perhaps — as in the hallucinations of artificial intelligence — redirecting the photographer toward unexpected creative alternatives. In this regard, one might recall Kerim Suner’s series of failed wet collodion photographs compiled under the title Failure Is an Option (Figure 2).9 Kerim Suner’s photographs, also produced through wet processes and largely in the ambrotype format and gathered under the title “When”, establish a nuanced, inventive, and at times ambivalent relationship with Istanbul’s photographic memory. At first glance, their tonal range, textures, and formats evoke the celebrated studio traditions of the nineteenth century, recalling views of Istanbul documented in the works of Sébah & Joaillier or the Abdullah Frères. With their exposure-induced density, objects and landscapes appear almost sealed onto the surface of the plate. They are set off by empty, indifferent skies that further deepen and bring them into relief, by dense and opaque fragments of sea resembling sheets of glass, and by striking contrasts of black, white, and grey. In this sense, the images unmistakably carry a nineteenth-century sensibility. One might expect these photographs, which bear the defining traces of older technologies and thus produce a sense of temporal distance, to establish a nostalgic bond with the 8 For Louis Sabuncu, see Kasım Hızlı, Yıldız Sarayı’nda Muhalif Bir Gazeteci: Mâbeyn Mütercimi Louis Sabuncu, 1891–1908 (Ankara, 2020). For Sabuncu’s (Louis Saboungi in Arabic transliteration) photographic patents, see Stephen Sheehi, The Arab Imago: A Social History of Portrait Photography, 1860–1910 (Princeton, 2016): 44–47. 9 For the series Failure Is an Option, see https:/ kerimsuner.com/tr/series/failure-is-an-option/ Kerim Suner is among the contemporary photographers who favor working with the fluid, process-based techniques characteristic of the mid-nineteenth century; he produces most of his photographs using wet collodion and related processes. As Alaz Okudan notes in his insightful article, which also covers Suner’s work, the turn by contemporary photographers toward such labor-intensive early technologies stems largely from a reaction against the standardizing, homogenizing, and algorithm-driven constraints of digital image production.5 Focusing on the distinct limitations and creative possibilities afforded by different photographic techniques, these artists choose to move away from the sterile and alienating nature of digital processes and instead engage with early methods that enable a tactile, embodied relationship with the material. These craft-oriented alternative practices also prompt us to reconsider the assumptions of conventional art history and art criticism, which tend to treat the photographic image as a finished product and evaluate it primarily in terms of visual content and aesthetic criteria. Photographers like Kerim Suner, who work with pre-digital and even pre-Kodak techniques, invite us to understand the visual output — whether printed on paper or displayed on screen — as part of a broader, temporally extended process of imagemaking, one that is deeply bound up with materiality. In doing so, they propose that this material and tactile process of production should be regarded as an essential and defining component of the photographic experience. The wet collodion process favored by Kerim Suner, in use since 1851, is a photographic technique that remained popular worldwide for a long time thanks to the high sharpness and fine detail it affords. It is often described as the most fluid of the popular photographic processes. The method requires a sensitized plate to be exposed while still wet and then developed within ten to fifteen minutes.6 In managing the process, not only the photographer’s skill and judgment but also the variability introduced by light, timing, and volatile chemicals play a crucial role. For instance, a photographer attempting a multi-plate panorama outdoors would need to prepare each plate individually, rush each one to the mobile darkroom set up on site and develop it before it dried, and adjust for shifting light and atmospheric conditions while exposing successive plates. At the same time, the photographer would have to contend with curious onlookers and, at times, overly inquisitive officials (needless to say, wet collodion photography and related printing processes typically required intensive teamwork).7 Wet collodion photography, then, was composed of a hybrid and at times unstable assemblage of human and nonhuman agents — chemicals, the optical and mechanical 5 Alaz Okudan, “Camera Archaeologia: A Media Archaeological Investigation into the Contemporary Use of NineteenthCentury Photographic Processes,” 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, 38 (2025) <https:/ doi.org/10.16995/ntn.17135> 6 Wet collodion photography, and early photography more broadly, was essentially a product of the “chemical revolution” of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which also played a significant role in the environmental devastation we face today. 7 When I was present at Kerim Suner’s Eyüp panorama (pp. 86–87) shoot, taken from Pierre Loti Hill, I had the chance to directly observe the pressure, uncertainty, and joy of discovery generated by all the variables involved in the process. Figure 2 Selected plates from the Failure Is an Option series 2015 Failure #04 Failure #28 Failure #44 Success? Failure #06 Failure #11
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