How to date an old photograph from clothes, format and processing clues

Start with the format

• Daguerreotype: an image on a polished silver-coated metal plate, usually in a small hinged case. It looks like a mirror and the image appears positive or negative depending on the angle. Common from the 1840s into the 1850s.
• Ambrotype: an image on glass, backed with dark material to make it appear positive, often cased. Popular from the mid-1850s into the 1860s.
• Tintype: an image on a thin iron sheet, so a magnet usually sticks to it. Introduced in the mid-1850s and made for decades afterwards, especially by travelling and seaside photographers.
• Carte de visite: a small paper print mounted on card about the size of a visiting card. Introduced around 1859 and hugely popular through the 1860s and 1870s.
• Cabinet card: a larger mounted print, appearing from around the mid-1860s and at its peak in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Card mounts and backs

• Thickness: early cartes were on thin card; later mounts were thicker.
• Corners and edges: square corners tend to be earlier, rounded corners later, and gilt or bevelled edges point to later decades.
• Colours and decoration: plain backs are earlier; elaborate printed designs advertising the studio came later.
• The photographer's name and address: this is a gift. Trade directories and local archives can show when a studio operated at that address, sometimes to within a few years.

Twentieth-century prints

• Postcard backs: many family portraits were printed as postcards from the early 1900s. The design of the stamp box and the printed text on the back can help date the paper.
• Small snapshots with white borders became common once roll film and cheap cameras made photography affordable for families.
• Deckled, wavy edges were popular on prints in the mid-twentieth century.
• Colour prints became widespread in family albums from roughly the 1960s and 1970s. Faded colour, often shifted to red or orange, is typical of prints from that era.
• Square prints with rounded corners, and instant prints with a wide bottom border, point to particular cameras and decades.
• Processing marks: some labs printed the month and year on the back or edge of prints. Check carefully.

Clothes and hair

• Women's sleeves, waistlines and skirt shapes changed noticeably between decades in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
• Hats, collars and ties for men changed style regularly.
• Hairstyles, including beards and moustaches, followed fashions too.
• Children's clothing can help, as can school or military uniforms.

Context in the picture

• Vehicles, shop signs, street furniture and buildings can give a date after which the photo must have been taken.
• Military insignia and medals can be researched precisely.
• Furniture and studio props such as columns, balustrades and painted backdrops were fashionable at different times.

Put the clues together

1. Identify the format to get a broad range.
2. Check the mount or paper to narrow it.
3. Research the studio if named.
4. Use clothing and context to refine further.
5. Match against family facts, such as the ages of people you can identify, marriages and moves.