Palace of the Governor, Uxmal, Mexico

The adventurer Désiré Charnay  was inspired to photograph Mayan ruins in Mexico by Frederick Catherwood's daguerreotypes from his 1841 exploration of the Yucatán with John Lloyd Stephens. Charnay wrote of the difficulties of using the wet plate process in the intense heat at Uxmal: either the collodion dried too quickly or the chemicals decomposed. Still, he found it preferable to the paper process for achieving the sharpest possible recording of architectural detail and inscriptions. In this photograph of the governor's palace, the careful stonework that animates the building's surface is fully revealed by Charnay's skillfully modulated exposure.