Chichen Itzà, right wing of the Nunn's Palace

A noted adventurer and archaeologist, Désiré Charnay was the first to photograph the Mayan ruins in the Yucatan of Mexico. Under hot and difficult conditions, he worked with a large- format camera and wet-collodion glass negatives. The process required that each negative be handsensitized, exposed, and developed on the spot. When Charnay arrived at this site in the spring of 1860, it was covered almost entirely by jungle growth. His assistants spent days hacking away the undergrowth to bring these mysterious ancient structures to view.