Talbot’s technique converted a negative image into a positive one, a procedure that remains core to film-based photography. Because the negative made it pos- sible for the image to be replicated an infinite number of times, unlike the daguerreotype, painting-conscious pho- tographers such as Oscar G. Rejlander (1813–75) could assemble elaborate, multifigure compositions in stage-like settings. They pieced the total image together from a vari- ety of negatives and then orchestrated them, rather in the way history painters prepared their grand narrative scenes