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Photography, §I: Processes and materials
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Photography, §I: Processes and materials
I. Processes and materials.
1. Introduction.
All photographic processes derive ultimately from the knowledge that certain substances can be
physically changed by the action of light. It was known as early as the 16th century that salts of
silver would darken when exposed to light, a phenomenon that was exploited by the pioneers of
photography, and almost all the major photographic processes to the present day have been silver
halide based. Photomechanical prints, however, are usually derived from processes based on the
hardening action of light on bichromated gelatin. From the introduction of the calotype the basic
photographic process has remained one of producing a negative in the camera and using this
negative to make a positive print. In terms of the progress of photographic technique, the various
processes and materials are in general related to the broad areas of concern outlined here.
(i) The first photographic processes.
Apart from a direct positive process on paper devised by HIPPOLYTE
BAYARD,
William Henry Fox Talbot and
Nicolaas Henneman (attrib): The
Reading…
which enjoyed brief popularity in France, the two first fully
practicable methods of producing photographic images were the
daguerreotype and photogenic drawing. The discovery of the
daguerreotype process (see §2 below), partly based on earlier
experiments by NICÉPHORE NIÉPCE, was announced in France on 7
January 1839. Daguerreotypes (named after the inventor LOUIS DAGUERRE) were direct positive
images on copper plates coated with a thin layer of silver. The announcement of the French
discovery prompted the Englishman WILLIAM HENRY FOX TALBOT to publish details of a process he
had devised that involved the production of a negative from which an unlimited number of positive
images could be produced, a technique that formed the basis of the major subsequent photographic
processes (see fig.). Initially both of the early processes required long exposures in the camera, but
during 1840 a series of improvements to the daguerreotype process reduced exposure times to the
point where portrait photography became feasible (see §II). In September of the same year Talbot
discovered that a brief exposure in the camera produced a latent invisible negative image on paper
that could be made visible by chemical treatment. This improved process, calotype (see §2 below),
also reduced exposure times sufficiently to allow the photography of living subjects. These two
pioneering photographic processes were favoured by the vast majority of photographers for the next
decade. With some notable exceptions, the daguerreotype process was favoured by the
professional photographic portraitist (see fig.), while the calotype process, which produced images
on paper, was largely practised by amateurs, especially in Britain.
(ii) Negative materials.
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A variant of the calotype process, the waxed paper negative process (see §2 below) was
announced in 1851. It offered several advantages over Talbot’s process, although exposure times
were rather long. However, because it was convenient to use out of doors, it found favour for a time
with many landscape and architectural photographers, particularly in England and France. Much
more important was the announcement in the same year of the wet collodion process (see Collodion
negative below). This involved the production of a negative on glass. It combined the relative
advantages of the two pioneering processes, and, requiring a shorter exposure time than either, it
soon displaced them from favour.
The great disadvantage of wet collodion photography was the need to coat and sensitize the glass
plate with collodion, make the exposure and develop the latent image to produce a negative, all
before the collodion had dried. This meant that the photographer was always encumbered with
camera, dark tent, processing equipment, chemicals and water. For the next 20 years much energy
was expended in the search for a dry pre-prepared plate with a sensitivity comparable to wet
collodion. In 1871 Dr Richard Leach Maddox (1816–1902) published details of a method of
preparing gelatin emulsion dry plates. The process was improved during the 1870s, and by the end
of the decade gelatin dry plates (see §2 below), even more sensitive than wet collodion plates, were
being mass-produced and widely marketed. A new age for photography had begun. With dry-plate
photography the photographer was at last freed from the encumbrance of large quantities of
equipment and much of the chemical manipulations that had hitherto been essential. Dry gelatin
emulsions soon made possible hand-held cameras and roll-film, heralding the snapshot era and true
popular photography. From the 1880s onwards the bulk of photographic negative materials
manufactured have been silver gelatin based.
(iii) Positive prints.
The negative is essential for most photographic processes, but the finished product is a positive
print, usually produced by a separate and distinct operation. The earliest photographic prints were
produced by what are known as printing-out processes. By this technique sensitized paper was
exposed to daylight beneath a negative and allowed to darken until an image appeared without
further chemical treatment. In contrast, developing-out processes, produced by chemically treating
briefly exposed sensitized paper, were well known to the pioneers but not widely favoured until the
end of the 19th century. The natural tint of a photographic image is dependent on the number and
size of the silver particles that make up the image. Printing out produces a comparatively low
number of very small silver particles that appear red-brown to the human eye. The image formed by
chemical development is made up of a greater number of larger silver particles that appear more
neutral in colour and denser in tone.
Talbot’s prints using paper treated with a common salt solution and
sensitized with silver nitrate were always produced by printing out,
although the calotype process used a development technique for
making negatives. Similar or identical processes for producing prints
were favoured by many photographers even after the introduction of
wet collodion negatives, although salted paper prints (see §2 below)
were generally abandoned in the 1860s. From 1850 to 1890 the vast
majority of photographs were produced as albumen prints (see fig.;
see also §2 below). Albumen printing, based on a paper made from
salted egg white and sensitized with silver nitrate, was also a
Roger Fenton: His Imperial
Highness Prince Napoleon
printing-out process. During the 1880s gelatin papers derived from the
(Napoleon III), albumen…
new gelatin dry plates began to be introduced. They were based on
gelatin, in which were suspended silver salts, and were initially produced as both printing-out and
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development papers. They soon displaced albumen paper and remained the common means of
producing photographic prints. During the 20th century the photographic industry produced a variety
of papers that gave the photographer great latitude in the choice of textures, tones and surface
finishes to enhance the image (see Printing paper below).
(iv) Toning.
Chemical toning to intensify the tones of the image and also to reduce the risk of fading was a
common practice in the 19th century. The most widely used agent was gold, and the majority of
surviving daguerreotypes and albumen prints are gold toned. Sulphur was quite frequently used to
tone salt prints and albumen prints in the 1840s and 1850s, before it was realized that these faded
much more rapidly than untoned prints. Platinum was also used as early as the 1850s but was only
in widespread use in combination with gold in the 1890s. In the 20th century toning was less
universally practised, but the technique was not uncommon in specific circumstances. Sulphide, a
variety of metal toners and mordant dyes have all been used by photographers.
(v) Permanent prints.
One of the greatest problems of 19th-century photography was the fading of prints. Many
experimenters made attempts to devise a ‘permanent print’, the most important perhaps being the
process using carbon pigment, announced in 1864. Carbon prints (see §2 below) are extremely
stable and were produced in large numbers in both the 19th and 20th centuries. Another solution
was platinum printing, which derived from a process patented in 1873. Platinum prints (see §2
below) became quite popular until the rise in price of the metal at the time of World War I caused it
to be discontinued.
It was the problem of fading as much as the desire to reproduce photographs alongside text on a
printed page that led to the invention of satisfactory photomechanical processes. Almost all
photomechanical processes depend on the fact that bichromated gelatin is hardened by the action
of light. The first person to make use of this was Talbot, and the foundations of the successful
photogravure processes (see §2 below) were laid in his patent of 1852. Both photolithography and
half-tone printing (see §2 below) also depend on the same action of light on bichromated gelatin.
(vi) Colour photography.
From the earliest days of photography attempts were made to produce images showing natural
colour. The most simple way was to colour by hand, and many early photographs were hand
coloured using powders, watercolours or thinned oil paints. True colour photography depends on the
principle that any colour is represented to the human eye by mixtures of the three primary colours
blue, green and red light, and also that colours can be reproduced either by adding portions of the
primary colours together (additive processes) or by subtracting them using filters of the
complementary colours yellow, magenta and cyan (subtractive processes). The first true colour
photograph was produced by the physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831–79) in 1861, but it was not
until 1907 that a satisfactory commercial colour process, Autochrome (see §2 below), became
widely available. This process was based on starch grains dyed in the three primary colours
randomly distributed across a tacky glass plate. Other such ‘screen plate’ processes were marketed
and quite widely used up to the 1930s. A ‘screen film’ process working on similar principles,
Dufaycolor, was marketed in England until the 1950s. Orthochromatic plates (sensitive to all colours
except red and oversensitive to blue) were in use from the 1870s, and in the 1910s film sensitive to
all colours (panchromatic film) was introduced.
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From around the first decade of the century until the end of the 1930s most commercial colour
photographers produced colour prints from three separate negatives taken through red, green and
blue filters. For static subjects, it was possible to make three consecutive exposures, most
conveniently by using a repeating back on the camera. For subjects requiring short exposures,
specially constructed beam-splitting cameras were used to make the separation negatives. Prints
from these negatives were made by a variety of methods. In all these processes the final print or
transparency was built up by superimposition from three separate negatives. Considerable care was
required to ensure that they came together in accurate register. In most modern photographic
processes the colour record is produced on a single film or printing base coated with three layers of
emulsion sensitive to blue, green and red light respectively. The coloured image is produced by
building up coloured dyes released during the development process. There are a number of variants
of these ‘integral tripack processes’, but almost all work on the principles described above. This is
even true of the instant picture systems marketed by both Polaroid (see §2 below) and Kodak,
although here the film is multi-layered and the sequence of chemical events much more
complicated. The first successful tripack processes were introduced in the mid-1930s but were not
widely marketed until after World War II (see Cibachrome, Ektachrome and Kodachrome below).
Since 1839 a bewildering variety of photographic processes have been devised, perhaps hundreds
in the 19th century alone (for further discussion see §II, 6,). An outline of the more popular and widely
used processes and materials follows.
2. Glossary.
Albertype.
See Collotype.
Albumen print.
The process for producing these was introduced by Louis-Désiré
Blanquart-Evrard in 1851. It soon became the most widely used
means of producing photographic prints in the 19th-century, until c.
1895 (e.g., Devil’s Canyon, Geysers, Looking Down). Paper was
coated with salted albumen derived from egg white and sensitized
with silver nitrate before use. The print was made by placing this
sensitized paper in a printing frame beneath a negative and exposing
it to daylight until an image appeared. When fixed, the image was a
Carleton E. Watkins: Devil’s
Canyon, Geysers, Looking Down,
red-brown colour with yellow highlights. From the mid-1860s lightly
albumen silver…
tinted albumen paper became popular as a means of masking or
disguising the yellow highlights, which many photographers found objectionable. Most albumen
prints were gold toned to the rich purple-brown image colour often described as sepia and accepted
by many observers as typical of the 19th-century photograph. Most of the vast numbers of cartesde-visite and stereoscopic images (see below) that were so popular in the 19th century were
produced as albumen prints, and the process was favoured at one time or another by almost all the
distinguished photographers of the period.
Ambrotype.
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See Collodion positive.
Autochrome.
The first commercially successful colour process. It was announced by the brothers Auguste
Lumière (1862–1954) and Louis Lumière (1864–1948) in 1904, first marketed in 1907 and in use
until c. 1935. Autochrome plates were prepared by scattering starch grains dyed in the three primary
colours across a sticky glass plate. The screen plate was coated with a silver gelatin emulsion and
sold to the public in this form. When the plates were exposed in the camera, the starch grains acted
as a three-colour screen. The exposed plates were then subjected to a reversal development
process, which produced a positive image. The finished photograph was in the form of a dense but
richly coloured glass transparency made up of microscopic colour filters. Because of the dense
nature of the plates they were viewed in front of a strong light source. The Autochrome process was
the most practicable and popular of the early colour processes, even though the plates were
expensive and required comparatively long exposures. Several distinguished photographers
experimented with the process, one of the most notable being Edward Steichen, but the majority of
specimens that survive were made by enthusiastic and sometimes highly competent amateurs.
Blueprint.
See Cyanotype.
Bromide print.
Term applied to the first type of gelatin silver bromide development paper, which was introduced c.
1880. By the turn of the century bromide prints were in widespread use and remained the standard
means of producing monochrome prints. The term ‘bromide print’ was commonly used until the
1920s, but with the decline of rival processes, the description gradually fell into disuse. (See also
Gelatin silver paper, Printing paper below.)
Bromoil print.
Technique devised by E. J. Wall (d 1928) and C. Wellbourne Piper (1866–1919) in 1907 as a variant
of the oil pigment process (see below). A standard gelatin silver bromide print (see above) was
treated with a potassium bichromate solution, which bleached the image and selectively hardened
the gelatin. After washing and fixing, greasy inks were applied by brush, the ink being absorbed by
the softer areas of the gelatin in proportion to the amount of silver in the original bromide print. The
inked prints were sometimes transferred to a second sheet of paper by means of a printing press.
Cabinet card.
A fall in demand for the carte-de-visite (see below) in the 1860s and the lack of opportunity for
retouching (see below) provided by the smallness of the carte image prompted F. R. Window’s
introduction in 1867 of the ‘cabinet card’ for portraits (cabinet portraits). About four times the size of
the carte and of a size more suitable for display (hence ‘cabinet’), the cabinet card allowed
photographs of groups and women in large dresses to be taken, and remained popular until World
War I.
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Calotype.
Paper negative process discovered by William Henry Fox Talbot in September 1840 and patented
by him in 1841. Good-quality writing paper was treated with a silver nitrate and potassium iodide
solution. After drying, the paper could be stored indefinitely in the dark or used immediately. Prior to
exposure in the camera the paper was usually sensitized using a freshly prepared solution of silver
nitrate, gallic acid and acetic acid. After exposure a similar gallo-nitrate of silver solution was used to
develop the image, which was fixed using a solution of potassium bromide or more commonly ‘hypo’
(hyposulphite of Soda or sodium thiosulphate). The final negative was usually waxed to make it
translucent (see Waxed paper negative below). The positive prints made from these negatives were
printed on to salted paper as described by Talbot for his ‘photogenic drawing’ process.
Nevertheless, the term calotype (or Talbotype) has also been more or less indiscriminately used to
describe the salted paper positive prints (see Salted paper print below) produced from calotype
negatives. The calotype process was the dominant negative-positive process practised between
1841 and 1851. It was popular with amateur landscape and architectural photographers, particularly
in Britain and France. The inexact chemical knowledge of the time affected the stability of the
calotype so that it had a tendency to fade, while the irregular paper grain produced a less finely
detailed representation of visible reality.
Camera.
For a discussion of the influence of camera design on photographic imagery and practice see §II
below, especially §§6 AND 9.
Cameraless image.
See Photogram.
Carbon print.
A means of producing permanent pigment prints that was perfected by Sir Joseph Wilson Swan
(1828–1914) in 1864 and based ultimately on the work of Alphonse Louis Poitevin. It is a process
that depends on the hardening action of light on bichromated gelatin. Swan prepared his ‘carbon
tissue’ by spreading a layer of gelatin impregnated with a coloured pigment (typically carbon black)
on to a sheet of paper and sensitizing it with potassium bichromate. The tissue was then placed
beneath a negative and exposed to light. The areas beneath the dense parts of the negative
remained more or less unaffected, but areas unprotected from light were hardened. In theory the
tissue could then be washed with warm water, which removed only the soft soluble gelatin thus
‘developing’ the image. In practice Swan found that the entire surface of the original tissue became
hardened during exposure, although this was no more than a very thin coat in the areas least
exposed to light. It was therefore found necessary to cement a fresh sheet of paper to the face of
the exposed gelatin before the warm, water wash. The soaking action removed the original support
tissue exposing the soft unchanged gelatin, which was also washed away leaving an image of
hardened gelatin impregnated with pigment. This final print was laterally reversed but could be
corrected by a further transfer process. Carbon prints show a very slight relief and rarely exhibit
signs of aging or image deterioration. During the last quarter of the 19th century they were widely
used for book illustrations and the commercial reproduction of conventionally made photographs
and prints. The process was actively exploited in England by the Autotype Company, who acquired
Swan’s patent rights in 1868.
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Carte-de-visite.
Art form that was first popularized by the Parisian photographer ANDRÉ ADOLPHE EUGÈNE DISDÉRI in
the later 1850s. Typically a carte-de-visite was a full-length portrait in the form of an albumen print
pasted on to a mount the size of a visiting card. During the 1860s they became immensely popular,
and a craze developed for collecting cartes of celebrities of the day as well as of family and friends.
Cartes of fashionable personalities such as the British Royal family sold in thousands. The portraits
were usually made using multiple-lens cameras taking several pictures simultaneously or with single
lens cameras taking successive images on a single plate. Cheap viewers containing a single
magnifying lens were popular for viewing cartes. The fashion also created a demand for albums,
often elaborately decorated, which contained pages of stiff cards cut with appropriate apertures to
hold cartes. Many such Victorian albums survive in public and private collections. Although they
remained popular until World War I, waning demand in the later 1860s prompted the introduction of
the cabinet card (see above).
Chlorobromide paper.
See Printing paper.
Chronophotography.
A technique devised by ETIENNE-JULES MAREY in the 1880s for
producing a photographic record of a chronological sequence of
movements at short regular intervals as multiple exposures (see
below; see also fig.) on a single negative. The term is also sometimes
Etienne-Jules Marey: Untitled (Man applied to a series of separate images exposed by multiple cameras,
Beginning to Run), gelatin silver
print,…
a technique first used by EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE from the 1870s. (See
also High-speed photography below.)
Cibachrome.
A colour print process introduced in 1963 and marketed in England by Ilford Ltd. It is an integral
tripack process (see §1(VI)), but instead of producing a coloured image by building up dyes, the final
print is produced by bleaching out the dyes not required. This silver dye-bleach process results in a
very stable colour print, which is particularly suitable for exhibition work.
Collodion negative.
A method for producing negatives on glass devised by Frederick Scott Archer (1813–57) in 1851
and in use until c. 1885. Collodion was made by dissolving gun-cotton in alcoholic ether. It was
treated with a solution of potassium iodide and coated on to a glass plate that was then sensitized
with silver nitrate and exposed in the camera while still wet. Immediately following exposure, the
plate was developed and fixed. It was possible to capture extremely fine detail on collodion
negatives, and under good conditions exposure times could be as short as a few seconds. The
great drawback of the process was that the plate had to be exposed while still wet. A series of
chemical manipulations and a great quantity of paraphernalia were an essential adjunct to the taking
of every photograph. Despite these problems the wet collodion (or wet-plate) process was the most
widely used technique for making negatives for c. 25 years, and the process was practised by
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almost every mid-19th-century photographer of note. However, the problems of fading in the print,
which used silver salts in an albumen emulsion, had not disappeared, and efforts to make positives
using other light-sensitive chemicals occupied a number of practitioners.
Collodion positive.
A technique that involved placing an underexposed, bleached glass collodion negative in front of a
dark ground, which gave it the appearance of a positive image. In England these were known as
collodion positives and in the USA as ambrotypes. They were produced almost exclusively by
commercial portrait photographers and were typically sold in a cased form as cheap imitations of the
daguerreotypes they partially superseded. Although they were widely popular for only c. 15 years
after their introduction in 1852, they continued to be favoured by a small number of portrait
photographers at the lower end of the market almost until the end of the 19th century.
Collotype.
A photolithographic process that was based on a patent by Alphonse Louis Poitevin in 1855 and
developed by various experimenters in the 1860s; it was not fully practicable until the 1870s. The
basic process consisted of bichromated gelatin on a printing plate exposed to light under a negative
and then moistened with water. A greasy ink was applied and was taken up in proportion to the
hardening produced by the light falling on the gelatin. As the gelatin dried, it produced a
characteristic wrinkling or reticulation on the surface of the plate. The inked image was then
transferred from plate to paper using a printing press. Until c. 1900 collotypes and a number of
variations of the process (Albertype, heliotype, papyrotype etc) were used quite widely, particularly
to illustrate books. The process was occasionally used later as a method of good-quality printing
(see COLLOTYPE).
Colour photography.
See §1(VI) above.
Combination print.
Prints made from two or more different negatives or prints. Combination prints can be produced by
printing negatives placed together in the negative carrier of an enlarger. Alternatively, one negative
image may be printed over another on the same sheet of paper. A specialized form of combination
printing is the PHOTOMONTAGE, where parts of several prints are cut out and fixed to a support to
make a composite image. Combination printing was first widely practised in the 1850s when it
became commonplace to add clouds to photographic landscapes by printing in separate cloud
negatives. The Victorian art photographers made extensive use of the technique. O. G. REJLANDER,
HENRY PEACH ROBINSON
and WILLIAM L. PRICE were particularly notable exponents, using up to 30
negatives to produce compositions that never existed in reality. The technique became familiar to
professional photographers and came to be widely applied in the advertising industry. (See also
Multiple exposure below.)
Cyanotype.
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A process invented by Sir John Herschel in 1842 but not much used until the 1880s. It depended on
the light-sensitivity of certain iron salts. Paper coated with a ferric salt and potassium ferricyanide
was exposed to light producing an image in the insoluble pigment prussian blue. The image was
fixed simply by washing in water. From the 1880s until the second half of the 20th century the
process was used irregularly by amateurs as a quick, cheap means of producing sample prints from
negatives. Its principal use, however, was for copying plans and drawings, from which arose the
popular name ‘blueprint’. One notable early practitioner was ANNA ATKINS. (See also Photocopy.)
Daguerreotype.
The first practicable photographic process to be announced to the
public in 1839 by LOUIS DAGUERRE. A copper plate thinly coated with
silver was carefully cleaned and polished and then sensitized with
iodine vapour (e.g. Landscape with Cottage; see images tab for
additional examples). After exposure in the camera, the image was
developed with mercury vapour and fixed by washing in a common
salt solution. The image was a direct positive; no negative was
Marie-Charles-Isidore Choiselat
involved. The original process required exposure times of several
and Stanislas Ratel: Landscape
minutes, but a series of small improvements in 1840 soon reduced
with Cottage, daguerreotype,
164×217…
this to seconds and thus made possible portrait photography.
Throughout its life the daguerreotype process remained largely the preserve of the professional
portrait photographer. The cold, mirror-like appearance of the daguerreotype image was not entirely
to contemporary taste, and many daguerreotypes were delicately hand coloured. The surface of a
finished plate was easily marked, and it was therefore necessary to protect it with glass. The
professional photographer’s usual procedure was to fit the plates into cases of red morocco leather
or a black ornately moulded thermoplastic material. Daguerreotype photography was widely
practised in England from the early 1840s until c. 1855, when it began to be displaced by other
processes based primarily on the calotype (see above). Particularly fine daguerreotypes were made
in the USA, where the process remained popular for rather longer.
Diazo printing.
See Photocopy.
Dry plate.
See Gelatin dry plate.
Dufaycolor.
See §1(VI).
Ektachrome.
An improved integral tripack colour process (see §1(VI)) introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1946. In
this process the colour couplers forming the different dyes are dispersed in the form of oily globules
in the emulsion layers.
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Electrostatic printing.
See Photocopy.
Enlarging.
Until the introduction of fast gelatin halide developing papers towards the end of the 19th century,
large photographs were commonly made by contact printing large negatives made in a large
camera. With the widespread adoption of small format and miniature cameras in the 20th century,
enlarging (producing the print by shining light through the negative held away from the paper in an
enlarger) became one of the most important elements of modern photographic practice. As well as
simply enlarging (or reducing) the size of camera negatives, the creative photographer is able to
manipulate an image in an almost endless variety of different ways. The techniques of shading and
spot printing by use of masks or even hands are widely practised. These are methods of enhancing
or holding back the tones of parts of an image. Vignetting by masks or by optical methods is also
common. Bizarre, elongated, compressed or otherwise distorted images can be produced by flexing
the printing paper on the enlarger baseboard. Novel effects can also be produced by inserting
ornamental glass or texture screens made up from muslin, tissue, gauze or similar in the light path
of an enlarger. (See also Printing paper below.)
Ferrotype.
Name given to a collodion positive (see above) on a black metal plate (tintype in the USA). The
process was introduced in the 1850s and was practised until c. 1940. A ferrotype photograph could
be taken and processed very quickly, especially after the introduction of dry ferrotype plates in 1891.
For this reason it was much favoured by cheap itinerant photographers, and the images produced
are generally of poor quality.
Film.
Thin sheet of flexible material covered with a light-sensitive emulsion and used to make
photographic negatives.
(See EXPERIMENTAL FILM)
(See MOTION PICTURE FILM)
Flash photography.
A process of photographing otherwise dimly lit scenes by providing ‘instantaneous’ illumination. The
freezing of movement using sudden illumination had been demonstrated by Sir Charles Wheatstone
as early as 1834, and William Henry Fox Talbot took photographs using flash from a battery of
Leyden jars in 1851. Magnesium wire was used as an illuminant in photography from the 1860s, and
magnesium flash powder was in use from the 1880s until the flash bulb was introduced in 1925.
(See also High-speed photography below.)
Gaslight paper.
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Gelatin silver paper (see below) incorporating silver chloride rather than silver bromide. Because
gaslight papers were rather slow, they offered certain advantages to amateurs working in less than
ideal conditions. Contact prints could be made in artificial light, but the papers were not suitable for
enlargements. The image colour was generally colder than that of contemporary bromide prints.
Gelatin dry plate.
Details of the first gelatin dry plates were published by Dr Richard Leach Maddox (1816–1902) in
1871. The gelatin silver bromide emulsion he proposed was improved throughout the 1870s and
soon became so superior and more convenient to use than other contemporary negative materials
that they were almost completely abandoned within a few years. Gelatin silver bromide plates
continued to be mass-produced until the mid-1970s. Similar gelatin silver emulsions are used on
modern sheet and roll film.
Gelatin silver paper.
The gelatin silver halide emulsion used to make gelatin dry plates (see above) soon proved equally
suitable when applied to paper for making prints. Such papers were introduced in the 1880s and
remained the primary means of making monochrome photographic prints. When introduced, the
new papers immediately made contact printing by artificial light a practical proposition, even for
amateurs. Within a few years the same was true of enlarging (see above), previously an
inconvenient process involving cumbersome apparatus. (See also Gaslight paper above and
Printing-out paper below.)
Glass positive and slide.
The fine detail and range of tone that can be reproduced on glass have always attracted
photographers. The earliest practicable glass process was introduced by Claude Abel Félix Niépce
de Saint-Victor (1805–70) in 1847. His albumen-coated plates were very insensitive, even by the
standards of the time, but capable of reproducing extremely fine details. Similar plates were later
used for making positive transparencies for stereoscopes (see below) and lantern slides (see MAGIC
LANTERN),
and there were many distinguished 19th-century photographers who produced fine work
in these media. A popular form of portrait photograph during the 1850s and 1860s was the glass
collodion positive or ambrotype (see above). This was a bleached wet collodion negative (see
Collodion negative) mounted on a dark ground. Gelatin halide plates for lantern slides were widely
available by the end of the 19th century. These were specifically formulated to reproduce the finest
detail with absolute clarity. Modern slides are produced from plates with similar characteristics, for
any fault in the photograph will be grossly emphasized when enlarged by projection. Transparencies
for projection are usually made denser than equivalent prints as the powerful illuminant is capable of
resolving a wider graduation of tones.
Gum bichromate.
A printing process based on a patent by Alphonse Louis Poitevin of 1855. Gum printing was
developed by John Pouncy (c. 1820–1894) who took out a further patent in 1858 and later exhibited
several specimens. Paper coated with gum arabic was sensitized with a bichromate solution
containing vegetable carbon pigment. The paper was exposed to light under a negative and then
washed with water. By removing the soft gum that had not been hardened by light the water acted
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as a developer. The remaining hand-pigmented gum remained to give a positive picture. The
washing stage gave the operator considerable scope to manipulate the results, and there was a
great choice of pigment colours. The finished picture often resembled an artist’s charcoal drawing
more than a photograph (see fig. [not available online]). The process was revived and improved in
the 1890s. For a few years the process enjoyed a great deal of popularity, especially in PICTORIAL
PHOTOGRAPHY,
perhaps the most notable exponent being ROBERT DEMACHY, and it was used until c.
1930.
Half-tone printing.
A photomechanical means of reproducing photographs using very small dots of variable size to
reproduce tone. The principle was first suggested by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1852 but was not
developed commercially until the 1880s. The process involves rephotographing a photograph
through a ruled screen, which gives a negative image made of dots of variable size. This negative is
then used to produce a print on a metal plate coated with bichromated gelatin. The print is
developed with water yielding a plate bearing an image made up of dots of gelatin. The plate is
heated and etched before being used in a printing press. From the end of the 19th century onwards
half-tone has been the principal means of reproducing photographs in printer’s ink where long print
runs are required and quality is not of paramount importance.
Heliogravure.
See Photogravure.
Heliotype.
See Collotype.
High-speed photography.
Photography involving exposures of usually less than 1/1000 second. The techniques are highly
specialized, generally using sophisticated shutter systems or very short duration flash. They are
almost exclusively practised for scientific purposes, notably for weapons research, but the images
have fascinated and influenced the artistic community. The first high-speed photographs were taken
by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1851 using flash derived from a battery of Leyden jars. Between
1878 and 1885 EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE produced his celebrated studies of animal motion using
electromagnetic shutters. His sequential photographs enabled artists to understand and accurately
depict human and animal movement for the first time. Muybridge’s contemporary, the French
scientist ETIENNE-JULES MAREY, designed a revolving shutter camera that produced superimposed
multiple images on a single plate (see Chronophotography above), an effect much admired by
modern artistic photographers. The most influential 20th-century high-speed photographs are the
striking images produced by HAROLD E. EDGERTON using electronic flash and stroboscopic
techniques. In 1964 Edgerton was able to photograph a bullet travelling at 900 m per second as it
pierced an apple, with an exposure of 1/3 of a microsecond.
Infra-red photography.
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Photography by means of invisible rays beyond the red end of the visible spectrum that makes it
possible, using an orthodox camera with specially sensitized film, to record objects obscured by
distance, fog or darkness. The possibility that photographs could be taken using ‘invisible rays’ was
postulated by William Henry Fox Talbot, and infra-red photographs were made in the 19th century. It
was not until the 1930s that suitable film became generally available, and the technique was greatly
developed during World War II as an aid to aerial reconnaissance. Infra-red photography later had
many applications in science and industry. It has been widely used by galleries and art historians to
examine brushwork and alterations hidden beneath dirt, varnish and paint (see TECHNICAL
EXAMINATION, §II, 2).
The normal tones and colours of scenes are transformed by infra-red film, giving
effects that range from the mildly curious to the bizarre, qualities that have been exploited by several
photographers for aesthetic effect.
Kodachrome.
The first commercially successful integral tripack colour process (see §1(VI)) introduced by Eastman
Kodak in 1935. The process was developed by two musicians, Leopold Mannes (1899–1964) and
Leopold Godowsky (b 1900), who began their photographic investigations as amateurs but later
joined the staff of the Kodak Research Laboratory. Although the original Kodachromes compared
favourably with the other colour materials of the period, they suffered from dye instability and were
difficult to process. These problems were partially overcome in 1938 with the introduction of an
improved film. In 1941 a Kodachrome paper for making prints from Kodachrome transparencies was
introduced. The paper was coated with a three-layered emulsion, which paralleled the arrangement
on the tripack film. Kodachrome always used a method of processing where the dye-forming colour
couplers are carried in the developing solution. Such a system requires complex processing
arrangements, and Kodachrome was not completely compatible with other modern colour systems.
Magnetic tape.
Flexible tape used to record an electronic signal.
(see MAGNETIC TAPE)
(see VIDEO ART)
Multiple exposure.
Multiple exposure photographs are composed from several exposures made on a single plate or film
frame. The most notable historical exponent was the French scientist Etienne-Jules Marey, who
around 1883 published a chronological series of overlapping motion studies on a single plate (see
Chronophotography above). Some modern photographers have adapted his methods to produce
composite serial images. More commonly several similar or different exposures are made on the
same negative, yielding an image that can appear surreal.
Oil pigment.
A printing process based on the same principles as photolithography (see below). The essentials of
the process were practised by John Pouncy (c. 1820–1894) in the 1860s, but it became only briefly
popular following a publication by G. E. H. Rawlins in 1905, and it was in use only until c. 1914.
Bichromated gelatin on paper was exposed under negative and then treated with oily ink applied
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with a roller or brush. The ink was taken up selectively and could be either pressed on to another
sheet of paper while still wet (oil transfer) or left to dry on the original base. The appearance of the
final print was dependent to a great extent on the manipulation of the roller or brush. Broad tonal
effects were possible, and it was one of the methods much favoured in PICTORIAL PHOTOGRAPHY.
Orthochromatic plates.
See §1(VI) above.
Panchromatic film.
See §1(VI) above.
Panoramic photography.
Photographic panoramas have been made from the earliest days of photography. In the 1840s
William Henry Fox Talbot and Calvert Jones (fl 1840s) made panoramas from a succession of
calotype views (see Calotype above) by shifting the camera after each exposure so that one picture
overlapped with the next. When trimmed and mounted, pictures with an angle of view much wider
than the usual 40°–50° were produced. Similar methods, occasionally also employed by
daguerreotypists (see Daguerreotype above) are still in use. No special equipment other than a
tripod is required, but the technique is only generally suitable for static subjects such as landscapes
or architecture. Special panoramic cameras designed to scan a wide arc on a single plate or film
length in one operation were made from the earliest days of photography. The first was probably the
daguerreotype plate camera designed in Paris in 1845 by FRIEDERICH VON MARTENS. Other notable
19th-century cameras include Sutton’s Panoramic camera of 1859, which employed a revolutionary
wide-angle globe lens, and Johnson’s Pantascopic camera of 1862, where the camera body was
moved by a clockwork motor. Similar mechanisms were used in the popular Al Vista and Panoram
Kodak roll-film cameras marketed c. 1900. Perhaps the best-known clockwork-driven panoramic
camera was the Cirkut, patented in 1904 and still being sold in 1941. The widespread availability of
interchangeable lens systems, which include wide-angle and fish-eye lenses, diminished the role of
panoramic cameras, but the simple panoramic photograph was only ever sparingly employed for
aesthetic ends. Panoramic montages using techniques similar to those employed by Talbot and his
associates have, however, found much more favour.
Papyrotype.
See Collotype.
Photocopy.
A term commonly applied to techniques used to copy plans and documents. Earliest forms
employed photographic processes, including cyanotype (blueprint), diazo printing and
photolithography as well as conventional silver photography. Most modern copying systems are
based on electrostatic processes, where an image is formed by a change in the electrical properties
of sensitive materials when exposed to light. The first practicable electrostatic system, xerography,
was devised by the American Chester F. Carlson (1906–68) in 1938. Early photographic copying
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techniques were rarely employed by artists except to make crude reference copies of images.
Electrostatic copiers underwent tremendous improvement in later years but tend to produce images
with limited tonal range. However, they have been used, where a particular effect is required, to
make photograms (see below), or to make copy images to incorporate into montages or collages.
Photogenic drawing.
See Salted paper print.
Photogram.
A term once used to describe many forms of art photograph but now the accepted term for all
photographic images made without a camera. Many of the earliest photographs made by pioneers
such as William Henry Fox Talbot, Sir John Herschel and ANNA ATKINS were made by placing
objects such as leaves and lace on to sensitive paper and exposing them to sunlight. The resulting
simple outline image would today be called a photogram. Similar techniques were practised
intermittently throughout the 19th century. It was not until the 1920s that the process was widely
exploited artistically by such photographers as Christian Schad (Schadographs), Man Ray
(Rayographs; for illustration see MAN RAY) and LÁSZLÓ MOHOLY-NAGY. Modern photographers have
combined photograms with a variety of other techniques to produce complex abstract images. (See
also Cyanotype above.) The transference of a drawing on a transparent or translucent (negative)
medium on to photographic paper is known as CLICHÉ-VERRE.
Photogravure.
A photomechanical printing process based on patents taken out by William Henry Fox Talbot in the
1850s. The process was improved by Karel Klič in 1878 and only then developed commercially. In
Klič’s process a copper plate was coated with a fine bitumen dust to provide grain and then heated
to cause it to adhere. A carbon print was transferred on to the plate and developed in warm water to
give a negative relief image. Etching solutions of ferric chloride were applied successively so that
the plate was etched to different depths. The plate was then inked and the image transferred to
paper in a press. There were many improvements to the process from the 1880s, but the essentials
remained the same. Around 1900 photogravure was used to reproduce the work of some of the
most distinguished photographers of the age. The process has always been favoured where
high-quality reproductions at a reasonable cost are required. ‘Heliogravure’ is applied to a type of
photogravure developed in France in the 1850s from the ‘heliography’ of NICÉPHORE NIÉPCE, which
used bitumen made light-sensitive as a resist in etching the plate, and it is also an alternative name
for photogravure widely used in Europe.
Photolithography.
A generic term for a wide range of processes in general use that depend on the principle that
bichromated gelatin when exposed under a negative and then treated with water will take up greasy
inks selectively. The first photolithographic processes were practised in the 1850s. (See also
Bromoil print, Carbon print, Collotype, Gum bichromate, Half-tone printing, Oil pigment and
Woodburytype.)
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Photomicrography.
The technique of making photographs of minute objects using a camera and a microscope,
photomicrography is one of the oldest branches of photography. William Henry Fox Talbot’s first
photographs produced with an optical instrument were made with a solar microscope, not a camera.
Several early daguerreotypists made photomicrographs, particularly notable being the scientific
specimens of Alfred Donné (1801–78) and Léon Foucault (1819–68). Before the invention of
photography, it was the task of a skilled artist to record painstakingly the view down a microscope.
Photomicrography became one of the most important tools of science, medicine and industry, and
artists have found inspiration in images of the delicate structures of micro-organisms and the
complex matrix of mineral specimens and crystal patterns.
Platinum print (platinotype).
A printing process for producing platinum prints was patented by William Willis (1841–1923) in 1873.
Paper coated with iron and platinum salts was exposed to light under a negative. When the paper
was washed with a potassium oxalate solution, an image was formed of finely divided platinum
metal. Few photographers attempted to make up their own platinotype paper, and in 1879 the
Platinotype Company was set up to market the process. A platinum print was typically a rich black
with extremely fine detail. Warmer prints with the same detail could be produced using a hot
developing solution or by toning. Platinum printing was favoured by many photographers up until the
time of World War I, when the rise in price of the metal made it prohibitively expensive.
Polaroid.
A method of instant photography that entails the production of a negative and positive in the
camera, devised in the USA by Edwin H. Land (1909–82). As originally marketed in 1948, it required
the use of a purpose-designed camera taking a roll of negative sensitized paper combined with a roll
of positive non-sensitized paper that contained pods of viscous developer. It produced a brown
picture in about a minute. The process was rapidly improved, and by 1960 black-and-white pictures
could be produced in 10–15 seconds. In 1963 the first Polaroid colour film was marketed, and
film-packs rather than picture-rolls were offered. Film-packs in appropriate adaptors led to the
widespread use of Polaroid materials with traditionally designed cameras. The SX-70 Polaroid Land
camera, introduced in 1972, was a landmark in camera design. In its infancy Polaroid photography
was seen by serious photographers as an amusing gimmick or, at best, useful for quick record
shots. As the quality of film and equipment improved, professionals began to discover the
advantages of the process. Polaroid photography was championed by ANSEL ADAMS, who wrote a
technical handbook containing a portfolio of Polaroid images by himself and other distinguished
photographers. Other notable photographers who have made use of Polaroid materials include
YOUSUF KARSH, Sam Haskins (b 1926) and HELMUT NEWTON.
Printing-out paper (POP).
Term coined by Ilford Ltd in 1891 to describe a specific range of gelatin silver printing-out papers
introduced to replace albumen papers. By popular usage the term was widened to include all similar
papers that were exposed beneath a negative in daylight until an image appeared. The red-brown
POP image was usually toned with gold before fixing, which changed the colour to a rich purple.
Although printing-out papers were discarded by most photographers in the 1920s and 1930s, they
continued to be favoured by a minority, generally for portrait proofing, until c. 1950.
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Printing paper.
The characteristics of modern printing papers vary according to their physical quality, the chemistry
of the emulsion coatings and their contrast range. Physical characteristics include texture, surface
coating, colour and thickness. The tone of a finished print is largely governed by the emulsion
chemistry of the paper. Silver chloride papers will give hard blue-black prints. Silver bromide papers
give dense black prints. Chloro-bromide papers containing a mixture of the two halides tend to give
warmer black prints, but tones will vary according to the balance of components. With appropriate
manipulation of the development process, however, they may yield sepia or red-brown tones.
Papers are also manufactured in contrasting grades on a scale ranging from extra-soft to ultra-hard.
Soft papers tend to give flat prints with grey uniform tones. With the same negative a hard paper
would give an overcontrasted print with the light tones white and the dark tones completely black.
Variable contrast papers usually contain two emulsions, one rather soft, the other contrasty. The
emulsions are sensitive to different coloured lights, and by the use of appropriate colour filters in the
enlarger the skilled photographer can exert exceedingly fine control of contrast, even over different
areas of a single image if desired.
Retouching.
Term describing manipulations and alterations of the negative and/or positive image after
development. As photographic portraits of the size of the cabinet card (see above) became popular
in the late 1860s, opportunities were sought to hide defects and blemishes in the image
(photographic or not) by altering either the negative or the print with pencil, paint etc; evidence of it
can be seen in the paper negatives of Fox Talbot and his circle. Although controversial from its
inception, retouching remains in common practice (often employing the airbrush), especially in
portrait photography and photojournalism.
Sabattier effect.
See Solarization.
Salted paper print.
In his earliest photographic experiments in 1834 William Henry Fox Talbot discovered that writing
paper dipped into a weak solution of common salt and then treated with silver nitrate would darken
when exposed to light. In the 1830s Talbot used this simple reaction to make outline pictures using
leaves or lace placed directly on the sensitive paper and later to make camera negatives. He went
on to make positive prints by placing a second sheet of the same sensitive paper under a negative
and exposing it to light. The images were fixed at first with a saturated salt solution. Later Talbot
used potassium bromide or sodium thiosulphate (‘hypo’). In 1839 Talbot published details of this
process, which he called ‘photogenic drawing’. Talbot’s improved process, the calotype process (see
above), involved the production of a negative made visible by development, but he continued to
make the positive images by printing out on the same salted paper he used to make photogenic
drawings. The process was employed by most photographers to produce prints on paper until it was
superseded by albumen printing in the 1850s.
Shading.
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See Enlarging.
Silver chloride paper.
See Printing paper.
Silver gelatin paper.
See Gelatin silver paper.
Slide.
See Glass positive and slide.
Snapshot.
A term coined by Herschel in 1860 to describe a method of taking photographs quickly and easily
using simple apparatus introduced mainly as a result of advances in magazine cameras and the
roll-film cameras made by GEORGE EASTMAN c. 1890.
Solarization.
Term originally used to describe the effect whereby the image on a plate or film was reversed from
negative to positive when exposed to strong light during the development process. Examples of
such positives were exhibited in France by Armand Sabattier (1834–1910) as early as 1860 (the
‘Sabattier effect’), but most solarized images produced during the 19th century were simply the
results of faulty processing. In the 20th century the term was more widely used to describe a range
of techniques for producing partly reversed images by exposing negatives to calculated amounts of
light during developing and printing. MAN RAY and LEE MILLER were the first photographers to employ
these techniques for artistic effect c. 1930. Solarization can be a difficult technique to master but the
results are often striking. Images showing qualities of negative and positive combined can be
produced. Often they are eerie ghost-like pictures with dark areas outlined by contrasting light. The
technique was used by many distinguished photographers including Erwin Blumenfeld and László
Moholy-Nagy.
Spot printing.
See Enlarging.
Stereoscopic photography.
The principles of binocular vision and depth perception were explained by Euclid. In 1832 Sir
Charles Wheatstone applied Euclid’s principles to devise an instrument he called a stereoscope,
which used a pair of mirrors to reflect two slightly different flat drawings to each eye; they were
perceived as a single solid object. The stereoscope was of limited interest until the announcement of
a practicable photographic process in 1839 allowed the possibility of stereoscopic pictures from life.
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Around 1849 Sir David Brewster (1781–1868) designed a stereoscope in the form of a box fitted
with two lenses, eye distance apart. Using this device to view a pair of small photographs taken at a
separation of two to three inches, a single image of startling depth could be seen. Brewster’s
stereoscope became an immediate success when displayed at the Great Exhibition, London, in
1851. Throughout the 1850s and 1860s thousands of stereoscopes and hundreds of thousands of
stereoscopic photographs (stereographs) were sold.
Initially, stereoscopic photographs were made by successive exposures of a single camera or by
using two cameras side by side. In the mid-1850s twin-lens cameras were introduced, a pattern that
continued. Most stereoscopes marketed followed Brewster’s basic pattern, although there were
many variants, including elaborate cabinet forms. A cheap open form of the viewer designed by the
American Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–94) in 1861 was particularly popular and sold in vast
numbers. Many eminent Victorian photographers produced stereoscopic photographs, including
FRANCIS BEDFORD, FRANCIS FRITH and GEORGE WASHINGTON WILSON. Their work was marketed by
concerns such as The London Stereoscopic Company who had outlets all over the world. In the
20th century stereoscopic photography found many applications in science and technology.
Exploitation by the artist was limited because the pictures can be appreciated only with the aid of a
viewer. The future for photographic imagery with the illusion of three-dimensionality probably lies in
holography (see HOLOGRAM).
Talbotype.
See Calotype.
Texture screen.
See Enlarging.
Tintype.
See Ferrotype.
Toning.
See §1(iv) above.
Transparency.
See Glass positive and slide.
Variable contrast paper.
See Printing paper.
Vignetting.
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See Enlarging.
Waxed paper negative.
A modified form of the calotype process (see above), announced by
GUSTAVE LE GRAY in 1851 (e.g., The Great Wave; see images tab for
additional examples). In the calotype process the negative was
usually waxed immediately before printing to make it more
translucent. In Le Gray’s process the paper was waxed before
sensitizing, primarily to improve its keeping properties and enhance
its capacity to record fine detail. Exposure times were longer than for
the calotype process or the contemporary wet collodion process (see
Gustave Le Gray: The Great
Wave, Sète, albumen silver print… Collodion negative above), but it was convenient for the travelling
photographer to use for landscape and architectural photography. The
process was practised most widely in Britain and France; it never became popular in the USA.
Wet collodion (wet-plate) process.
See Collodion negative.
Woodburytype.
A photomechanical process patented by Walter Bentley Woodbury (1834–85) in 1865. An image in
relief made in bichromated gelatin, as in the carbon process (see Carbon print above), was placed
on a soft lead sheet in a hydraulic press. When compressed, a shallow mould was formed in the
lead following the contours of the original image. Warm pigmented gelatin was then poured into this
mould, a sheet of paper placed over it and, again using a press, the image transferred to the paper.
Woodburytypes have no grain and could be produced in any colour. The image is of high quality and
in appearance almost indistinguishable from a carbon print. They were widely used for book
illustrations during the last quarter of the 19th century.
Xerography.
See Photocopy.
See also DYE TRANSFER; LITHOGRAPHY, §II; REPRODUCTION OF WORKS OF ART.
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D. Breuger: Journeys in Microspace: The Art of the Scanning Electron Microscope (New York, 1995)
M. M. Evans: Contemporary Photographers (New York, [3/1995])
K. S. Howe, ed.: Intersections: Lithography, Photography and the Traditions of Printmaking (Albuquerque,
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M. Ware: Cyanotype: The History, Science and Art of Photographic Printing in Blue (London, 1999)
D. Arentz: Platinum and Palladium Printing (Boston, MA, and Oxford, 2000)
F. W. D. Rost and R. Jowett: Photography with a Microscope (Cambridge, 2000)
D. Morrish and M. MacCallum: Copper Plate Photogravure: Demystifying the Process (Amsterdam and
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P. Prodger and T. Gunning: Time Stands Still: Muybridge and the Instantaneous Photography Movement
(Stanford, CA, 2003)
J. P. Ward; updated and revised by Gerald W. R. Ward
Copyright © Oxford University Press 2007 — 2012.
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