Miethe was a German professor of photochemistry. He was a co-inventor of the magnesium flash and, working with Arthur Traube, developed the first panchromatic emulsion. He also designed a three-color sliding back camera manufactured and sold by Wilhelm Bermpohl to take color separations like the one here. The separations were taken one color at a time by means of a sliding holder for the plate. The process of taking the photographs was challenging, as described by Scott Bilotta at Scott's Photographica Collection:

With the shutter open, a photographer frames and focuses the subject on the ground glass screen. The next step is to close the shutter or cap the lens. Then the ground glass panel is removed and a plate holder is attached to the back. The back is raised to its highest position, where it is held in place by a spring-loaded latch. It is now time to withdraw the dark slide. The plunger on the cable release is pressed. This is a dual cable release. It is attached to the repeating back latch release and to the shutter. The shutter will fire and then as the plunger is pressed farther, the back latch will release and the back will drop. The long brass pneumatic cylinder that is attached to one side of the camera is called a dash pot. It controls the speed of the moving back. As the back approaches its next position its movement is stopped. It is caught and held by the latch. Beginning with cocking the shutter, these steps are repeated a second and third time (Bilotta 2020).

Miethe also developed a special-purpose, extremely precise projector to combine the three positive images produced from separation negatives (Scientific American 1904, 353).