hyposulphite of _lime_ (not soda). The hypo of lime does not form a
definite compound with silver, like soda; hence it is easily washed
away, and this is why the drawings are tolerably preserved after forty
years. All are on plain paper. Ammonia nitrate does not answer well on
albumenized paper. The art of toning by gold was not known in those
ancient days, but the faded drawings on _plain paper_, as you will see,
admit of restoration, in dark purple, by placing them in a very dilute
solution of chloride of gold, and putting them in the dark for
twenty-four hours. The gold replaces the reduced silver and sulphide of
silver. I send you the only copy I have of my photogenic drawing. Five
hundred were printed, and all were sold or given away. Please take care
of it. The loose photographs in red tape are scenes in Egypt and Greece,
taken about 1850 from wax-paper negatives (camera views) made by Mr. D.
Colnaghi, now English Consul at Florence. If you can call here I shall
be glad to say more to you on the matter.--Yours truly,
"Alfred S. Taylor."
The above was the last of many letters on photographic matters that I
had received from Dr. Taylor, and the last time I had the pleasure of
seeing him was when I returned the photographs and pamphlet alluded to
therein, only a short time before his death. Dr. Taylor never lost his
interest in photography, and was always both willing and pleased to
enter into conversation on the subject. He had worked at photography
through all its changes, despite his many professional engagements, from
its dawn in 1839, right up to the introduction of gelatino-bromide
dry plates, and in 1879 he came and sat to me for his portrait on one
of what he called "these wonderful dry plates," and watched the process
of development with as much interest as any enthusiastic tyro would have
done, and I am proud to say that I had the pleasure of taking the
portrait and exhibiting the process of development of the latest aspect
of photography to one of its most enthusiastic and talented pioneers.
Dr. Taylor was a man of remarkable energy and versatility. He was a
prolific writer and an admirable artist. On his walls were numerous
beautiful drawings, and his windows were filled with charmingly illusive
transparencies, all the work of his own hands; and once, when expressing
my wonder that he could find time to do so many things, he remarked that
"a man could always find time to do anything he wished if his heart was
with his work." Doubtless it is so, and his life and what he did in it
were proofs of the truth and wisdom of his observation.
Hydroquinone as a developer was introduced this year by Eder and Toth,
but it did not make much progress at first. It is more in use now, but I
do not consider it equal to oxalate of iron.
A considerable fillip was, this year, given to printing on
gelatino-bromide paper by the issue of "The Argentic Gelatino-Bromide
Worker's Guide," published by W. T. Morgan and Co. The work was written
by John Burgess, who made and sold a bromide emulsion some years
before, and it contained some excellent working instructions. In the
book is a modification and simplification of J. M. Burgess's Eburneum
Process, though that process was the invention of Mr. J. Burgess, of
Norwich; but a recent application of the gelatino-bromide emulsion to
celluloid slabs by Mr. Fitch has made the Ivorytype process as simple
and certain as the exposure and development of gelatino-bromide paper.
On January 30th, 1881, died Mr. J. R. Johnson, of pantascopic celebrity.
Mr. Johnson was the inventor of many useful things, both photographic
and otherwise. He was the chief promoter of the Autotype Company, in
which the late Mr. Winsor was so deeply interested; and his double
transfer process, published in 1869, contributed greatly to the
successful development and practice of the Carbon process. The invention
of the Pantascopic Camera, and what he did to forward the formation of
the Autotype Company and simplify carbon printing, may be considered the
sum total of his claim to photographic recognition.
The chief photographic novelty of 1881 was Mr. Woodbury's Stannotype
process, a modification and simplification of what is best known as the
Woodburytype. Instead of forcing the gelatine relief into a block of
type-metal by immense pressure to make the matrix, he "faced" a reversed
relief with tin-foil, thus obtaining a printing matrix in less time and
at less expense. I have seen some very beautiful examples of this
process, but somehow or other it is not much employed.
The man who unquestionably made the first photographic portrait died on
the 4th of January, 1882, and I think it is impossible for me to notice
that event without giving a brief description of the circumstance, even
though I incur the risk of telling to some of my readers a tale twice
told. When Daguerre's success was first announced in the Academy of
Science in 1839, M. Arago stated that Daguerre had not yet succeeded in
taking portraits, but that he hoped to do so soon. The details of the
process were not published until July, and in the autumn of that year
Dr. Draper succeeded in obtaining a portrait of his assistant, and that
was the first likeness of a human being ever known to have been secured
by photography. It would be interesting to know if that Daguerreotype is
in existence now. Dr. Draper was Professor of Chemistry in the
University of New York, and as soon as the news of the discovery reached
New York he fitted an ordinary spectacle lens into a cigar case, and
commenced his experiments first by taking views out of a window, and
afterwards by taking portraits. To shorten the time of exposure for the
latter, he whitened the faces of his sitters. In April, 1840, Dr. Draper
and Professor Morse opened a portrait gallery on the top of the
University Buildings, New York, and did a splendid business among the
very best people of the City at the minimum price of five dollars a
portrait, and they would be very small even at that price.
One more of the early workers in photography died this year on the 4th
of March. Louis Alphonse Poitevin was not a father of photography in a
creative sense, but, like Walter Woodbury, an appropriater of
photography in furthering the development of photo-mechanical printing.
His first effort in that direction was to obtain copper plates, or
moulds, from Daguerreotype pictures by the aid of electrical deposits,
and he discovered a method of photo-chemical engraving, for which he was
awarded a silver medal by the Societe d'Encouragement des Arts, but the
process was of no practical value. His chief and most valuable
experiments were with gelatine and bichromates, and his labours in that
direction were rewarded by the receipt of a considerable portion of the
Duc de Luynes's prize for permanent photographic printing processes,
which consisted of photo-lithography and Collotype printing. Born in
1819, he was sixty-three years old when he died.
A useful addition to the pyrogallic acid developer was this year given
by Mr. Herbert B. Berkeley. Hitherto, nearly all pyro-developed gelatine
plates were stained a deep yellow colour by the action of ammonia, but
the use of sulphite of soda, as suggested by Mr. Berkeley, considerably
lessened this evil.
In 1883, Captain Abney rendered a signal service to the members of the
Photographic Society, and photographers in general, by publishing in the
Journal of the Society a translation of Captain Pizzighelli and Baron A.
Hubl's booklet on platinotype. After giving a _resume_ of the early
experiments with platinum by Herschel, Hunt, and others, the theory and
practice of platinotype printing are clearly explained, and it was
undoubtedly due to the publication of this translation that platinotype
printing was very much popularised. In proof of the accuracy of this
opinion, every following photographic exhibition showed an increasing
number of exhibits in platinotype.
No great novelty was brought into the world of photography in 1884, but
there were signs of a steady advance, and an increasing number of
workers with dry plates. I should not, however, neglect allusion to the
publication of Dr. H. W. Vogel's experiments with eosine, cyanocine, and
other kindred bodies by which he increased the sensitiveness of both wet
collodion and gelatine plates to the action of the yellow rays
considerably (_vide_ Journal of Society, May 30th). The Berlin Society
for the Advancement of Photography acquired and published these
experiments for the general good, and yet Tailfer and Clayton obtained
patent right monopolies for making eosine gelatine plates in France,
Austria, and England. This proceeding seems very much akin to the sharp
practice displayed by Mr. Beard in securing a patent right monopoly in
the Daguerreotype process which was _given to the world_ by the French
Government in 1839. Germany very properly refused to grant a patent
under these circumstances.
On April 14th, 1885, Mr. Walter Bird read a paper at the meeting of the
Photographic Society of Great Britain, "On the Photographic
Reproductions of Pictures in the National Gallery," by A. Braun et Cie.
I was present, and it appeared to me that the "effects" in some of the
pictures exhibited were not produced by any chemical mode of translation
of colour, but by some method of after-treatment of the negative which
was more likely to be by skilled labour than by any chemical process.
This belief induced me to read a paper at the next meeting--May
12th--"On the After-Treatment of Negatives," in which I showed what
could be done both by chemical means and art-labour to assist
photography in translating the monographic effects of colour more in
accordance with the scale of luminosity adopted and adhered to by the
most eminent engravers both in line and mezzotint.
At the next meeting--June 9th--Mr. J. R. Sawyer reopened the discussion
on the above subject by reading a paper and exhibiting examples of his
own experiments, and Mr. Sawyer admitted that he was "bound to confess
that while every effort should be made to discover chemical combinations
which will give the utmost value that can be practicably obtained in the
reproduction (?) of colours, yet that, in all probability, art--and art
not inferior to that of a competent engraver--will be necessary to
assist photography in rendering the very subtle combinations of colour
that present themselves in a fine painting;" and Colonel H. Stuart
Wortley proved that the copy of Turner's "Old Temeraire" was not only
"retouched," but wrongly translated, as the various shades of yellow in
the original picture were represented in the copy as if they had been
all of the same tint. Mr. Sawyer made use of the phrase "reproduction of
colours," but that was an error. He should have said--and undoubtedly
meant--translation of colours, for photography is, unfortunately,
incapable of reproducing colours. Among Mr. Sawyer's examples was a
curious and contradictory evidence that isochromatic plates translated
yellow tints better than ordinary bromide plates, yet wrongly, for
three different shades of yellow were translated as if they had been all
one tint. I had noticed this myself when copying paintings and coloured
prints, but in photographing the natural colours of fruits and flowers
the result was different, and I attributed the mal-translation of
pigment yellows to the amount of white with which they had been mixed by
the painter. Be that as it may, I always obtained the best translation
from natural colours, and a group of flowers which contained a beautiful
sulphur coloured dahlia illustrates and confirms this statement in a
most remarkable and satisfactory manner. It is, therefore, the more to
be regretted that there is any restriction placed upon the individual
experiment and development of this interesting aspect of photography.
This was the year of The International Inventions Exhibition, and the
photographic feature of which was the historical collection exhibited by
some of the members of the Photographic Society of Great Britain, and I
think that collection was sufficiently interesting to justify my giving,
in these pages, the entire list as published in the _Photographic
Journal_:--
"We subjoin a full and complete statement of the whole of the exhibits,
with the names of the contributors:--
"Capt. Abney, R.E., F.R.S.--Papyrotype process, executed at the School
of Military Engineering, Chatham.
"W. Andrews--Wet collodion negatives, intensified by the Schlippes salt
method.
"T. and R. Annan--Calotype process (negative and print), taken by D. O.
Hill.
"F. Beasley, jun.--Collodio-albumen negatives.
"W. Bedford--One of Archer's first cameras for collodion process,
stereoscopic arrangement by Archer to fit a larger camera.
"Valentine Blanchard--Instantaneous views, wet collodion, 1856-65.
Illustrations of a method of enlargement, as proposed by V. Blanchard,
1873. Modification of the Brewster stereoscope by Oliver Wendell
Holmes.
"Bullock (Bros.)--Photo-lithography, 1866 (Bullock's patent).
"T. Bolas, F.C.S.--Detective camera, 1876. Negative photograph on
bitumen, made insoluble by the action of light. Carbon negatives
stripped by Wenderoth's process.
"E. Clifton--Portrait of Daguerre. Crystallotype by J. R. Whipple, 1854.
Specimens from "Pretsch" photo-galvano-graphic plates, 1856.
"T. S. Davis, F.C.S.--A combined preparation and wash bottle for
gelatine emulsion. Adjustable gauge for cutting photographic glasses.
"De la Rue and Co.--Surface printing from blocks executed by Paul
Pretsch, 1860.
"W. England--Old Daguerreotype developing box. Old ditto sensitising
box. Old camera, 1860, with rapid inside shutter. Instantaneous views in
Paris, wet collodion, 1856-65.
"Edinburgh Photographic Society--Archer's water lens.
"James Glaisher, F.R.S.--Nature printing, taken over thirty years ago.
"G. Fowler Jones--Prints from negatives by Le Gray's ceroline process.
"R. Kennett--Skaife's pistolgraph. Globe lens.
"Dr. Maddox--Some of the earliest gelatino-bromide negatives, by the
originator of the process, 1871.
"Mudd and Son--Collodio-albumen negatives.
"R. C. Murray--Early Talbotype photographs, 1844-45.
"H. Neville--Camera with Sutton's patent panoramic lens.
"Mrs. H. Baden Pritchard--Impressions from pewter plates of heliographic
drawing, by Nicephore Niepce, 1827. Original letter, by Nicephore
Niepce, sent to the Royal Society, 1827. View of Kew, taken by Nicephore
Niepce, 1827.
"H. P. Robinson--Heliographic picture, by Nicephore Niepce, 1826.
Photo-etched plate (from a print), by Niepce in 1827. Heliograph (from a
print), by Niepce, 1827. One of the earliest printing-frames, made for
Fox Talbot's photogenic drawing, 1839. The first nitrate of silver bath
used by Scott Archer in his discovery of the collodion process, 1850.
"Ross and Co.--One of Archer's earliest fluid lenses. The first
photographic compound portrait lens, made by Andrew Ross, 1841.
Photographic camera, believed to be the first made in England.
"Sands and Hunter--Old lens, with adjustable diaphragm, by Archer, 1851.
Old stereoscopic camera, with mechanical arrangement for transferring
plates to and from the dark slide.
"T. L. Scowen--Parallel bar stereoscopic camera. Latimer Clarke.
"John Spiller, F.C.S., F.I.C.--The first preserved plates (three to
twenty-one days), 1854. Illustrations of the French Pigeon Post.
"J. W. Swan, F.C.S.--Electro intaglios from carbon reliefs
(Thorwalsden's "Night and Morning"). Photo-mezzotints were taken from
these in gelatinous inks, 1860, by J. W. Swan, by the process now known
as Woodburytype. Plaster cast from a carbon print of Kenilworth, showing
the relief, taken in 1864, by J. W. Swan. Carbon prints twenty years old
(photographed and printed in various colours by J. W. Swan). Old print
(in red) by T. and R. Annan, by Swan's process. Carbon print, twenty
years old (printed in 1864) by double transfer.
"B. B. Turner--Talbotype. Negatives and prints from same. Single lens
made by Andrew Ross, 1851.
"J. Werge--Examples of printing with various metals on plain paper,
1839-42. The Fathers of Photography. Examples and dates of the
introduction of early photographs. Daguerreotype, 1839. Collodion
positive, 1851. Ambrotype, 1853. Ferrotype, 1855.
"W. Willis, Jun.--Specimen of aniline process. Historical illustrations
of the development of the platinotype process.
"W. B. Woodbury--Photo-relief printing process. Woodbury mould and
Woodburytype print from same, 1866. Stannotype printing-press, with
mould. Machine for measuring reliefs. Woodbury lantern slides. Early
Daguerreotype on copper. Positive photograph on glass. Woodbury balloon
camera. Microscopical objects in plaster from gelatine reliefs. Woodbury
collographic process. Woodbury photo-chromograph system, coloured from
the back, 1869. Woodbury actinometer. Despatch-box camera. Watermark or
photo-filigrain process. Transparency on gelatine. The first specimen of
Woodbury printing exhibited, including the first mould printed from, and
also proofs backed with luminous paint.
"Colonel H. Stuart Wortley--Early photo-zincographs, 1861-2.
Experimental prints with uranium collodion, 1867 (modification of
Wothly's process). Set of apparatus complete for making gelatine
emulsion, and preparing gelatine plates, 1877-8. No. 1. Apparatus for
cutting gelatine plates either by hand-turning or treadle. No. 2. Stove
for keeping emulsion warm for any time at a fixed temperature in pure
air, and for the final drying of the plates. No. 3. Apparatus for
squeezing emulsion out into water. No. 4. Apparatus for mixing emulsion.
Instantaneous shutter, with horizontal motion by finger or pneumatic
tube; adjustable wings for cutting off sky, and varying length of
exposure."
It is a very remarkable circumstance that none of the contributors to
that historical collection could include among their interesting
exhibits portraits of either Nicephore Niepce or Frederick Scott Archer.
Among my "Fathers of Photography" were portraits of Daguerre, Rev. J. B.
Reade, Fox Talbot, Dr. Alfred Swaine Taylor, and Sir John Herschel. It
was suggested that those historical exhibits should be left at the close
of the exhibition to form a nucleus to a permanent photographic
exhibition in Kensington Museum. I readily contributed my exhibits
towards such a laudable object. They were accepted, and these exhibits
may be seen at any time in the West Gallery of the Science Department
of the South Kensington Museum.
At the exhibition of the Photographic Society of Great Britain this
year, I exhibited "Wollaston's Diaphragmatic Shutter," in my opinion the
best snap shutter that ever was invented, but it had two very serious
drawbacks, for it was both _heavy_ and _expensive_.
In 1886 more than usual interest was exhibited by photographers in what
was misnamed as the isochromatic, or orthochromatic process, and this
interest was probably created by the papers read and discussions that
followed at the meetings of the Photographic Society in the previous
year. Messrs. Dixon and Gray--the latter a young man in the employ of
Messrs. Dixon and Son--commenced a series of experiments with certain
dyes with the hope of obtaining a truer translation of colour when
copying oil paintings or water-colour drawings, a class of work in which
they were largely interested, and had obtained a considerable reputation
for such reproductions as photography was then capable of rendering, and
one of the results of these experiments was exhibited, and obtained a
medal, at the exhibition of the Photographic Society in October. Messrs.
Dixon and Sons' exhibit was a very surprising one, and created quite a
sensation, as nothing equal to it had ever been shown before. The
subject was a drawing of a yellow flower and green leaves against a blue
ground--the yellow the most luminous, the green next, and the blue the
darkest. In ordinary wet or dry plate photography these effects would
have been reversed, but by Dixon and Gray's process the relative
luminosities of these three colours were almost perfectly translated.
Messrs. Dixon and Gray did not publish their process, but prepared
existing gelatine dry plates by their method, and sold them at an
enhanced price. They were not, however, permitted to supply anyone long,
for B. J. Edwards, who had obtained a monopoly of Tailfer and Clayton's
patent rights in England, served them with an injunction, or threatened
them with legal proceedings, so they discontinued preparing their
orthochromatic plates for sale. By some special arrangement they were
allowed to prepare plates for their own use, provided they used Edwards'
XL dry plates.
It so happened, however, that this proviso was not a hardship, for Mr.
Dixon told me himself that he had found Edwards' plates the most
suitable for their process. The hardship lay in not being able to apply
their own discovery or preparation to any dry plates for sale for the
public use and benefit. This prohibition was the more to be regretted
because no other commercial isochromatic or orthochromatic plates had or
have appeared to possess the same qualities of translation. The
suppression of the Dixon and Gray preparation of plates is the more
surprising when I find eosine is mentioned in the Clayton and Tailfer
claim, whereas Mr. Dixon assured me that eosine was not employed by
them. Mr. Edwards only acquired his monopoly and right to interfere with
the commercial application of an independent discovery on Nov. 18th,
1886, and there is little to be gained in England by the publication of
the experiments of such men as Vogel, Eder, Ives, and Abney, if one man
can prevent all others making use of them.
This year death removed from our midst one, and perhaps the greatest, of
the martyrs of photography--Sylvester Laroche. This was the man that
fought the battle for freedom from the shackles of monopoly. He won the
fight, but lost his money, and the photographers of the day failed to
make him a suitable recompense. There was one honourable exception, and
Mr. Sylvester told me himself that Mr. J. E. Mayall gave him L100
towards his legal expenses. Laroche's surname was Sylvester, but as
there was a whole family of that name photographers, he added Laroche to
distinguish himself from his brothers. Sylvester Laroche was an artist,
and worked very cleverly in pastel, but somehow or other he never
appeared to prosper.
Nothing particular marked the photographic record of 1887, but death was
busy in removing men who had made their mark both in the early and later
days of photography. First, on March 19th, Robert Hunt, the most copious
writer on photography in its earlier period. As early as 1844 he
published the first edition of his "Researches on Light," in which he
was considerably assisted by Sir John Herschel, and it is astonishing to
find what a mine of photographic information that early work contains.
The next was Colonel Russell, better known, photographically, as Major
Russell. He was born in 1820, and died on May 16th, 1887. He was best
known for his tannin process and alkaline developer, with a bromide
solution as a restrainer. For a long time his tannin process was very
popular among collodion dry plate workers, and very beautiful pictures
were taken on Russell's Tannin Plates, but it is many years since they
were ruthlessly brushed aside, like all other collodion dry plates, by
the now universally employed gelatino-bromide plates or films.