World Photography Day is celebrated on August 19 – a celebration of an art form that for the first time allowed humanity to preserve a moment exactly as the lens saw it. Today, photography has become a part of everyday life: a single touch of a smartphone screen is enough to capture an event. However, just a century and a half ago, creating each picture was a complex, lengthy, and laborious process that required not only skill but also immense physical endurance.

In the second half of the 19^th century, a photographer was simultaneously a painter, a chemist, an engineer, and a traveller. To do his work, a photographer had to transport bulky wooden cameras, heavy tripods, glass negatives, chemical reagents, and a portable darkroom. Preparing a single shot could take dozens of minutes, and the slightest mistake during development would render hours of work completely useless. Despite all the hardships, photographers journeyed to the most far-flung corners of Europe, Asia, and the Russian Empire, driven by a desire to capture cities, architectural landmarks, landscapes, and people.

The Caucasus holds a special place in the history of early photography – a region that sparked immense interest among travellers, scientists, and artists in the second half of the 19^th century. To contemporaries, its majestic mountain landscapes, ancient fortresses, monasteries, and diversity of peoples and cultures seemed like an almost uncharted world. To photograph mountain passes, gorges, and historical monuments, photographers had to navigate challenging routes, including the famous Georgian Military Road, which connected Vladikavkaz and Tiflis. The journey took many days, and transporting heavy equipment along winding road and mountain trails required substantial effort.

It is precisely thanks to the selfless work of the first masters of photography that invaluable visual testimonies of the era have survived to this day. Their works allow us to see not only natural landscapes but also people's daily lives, traditional clothing, architecture, the urban environment, and monuments – many of which have changed over time or been lost. Today, these photographs represent not only works of early photographic art but also crucial historical documents.

The photographs from the last third of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, presented in the museum Collection, introduce viewers to the rich heritage of early photography. Among them are works by Dmitry Yermakov, Vladimir Barkanov, Fyodor Gadaev, and Lev Rogozinsky, who dedicated a significant part of their art to the Caucasus. Their photographs preserved majestic mountain panoramas, ancient cities, traditional costumes, portraits of local residents, and scenes of everyday life, becoming a unique visual chronicle of the region.

The collection is complemented by pre-revolutionary photo postcards featuring views of Russian cities, images of theatre actors and ballerinas, as well as rare photographs of the Imperial Family members. These works allow us to trace the development of photography from a documentary recording of reality into an independent fine art. Each photograph is not just an image of the past, but an opportunity to see history through the eyes of the first masters, who managed to freeze time and preserve it for future generations.

Cover: View of Tiflis. Yermakov D.I. 1890