On January 25, 1839, at the Royal Institute in London, Vernon Heath heard the life-changing news of photography’s invention. Three years later, he purchased his first camera. By the 1850s, he was selling photographic materials, and by 1863 he opened his own photographic studio. Imbued with a delicate, romantic splendor, The Vale of Festiniog is the work of an artist devoted to beauty and the mastery of photographic technology and process. Carbon prints are rich in depth and tonal subtlety but notoriously complex to produce.