The Evolution of Photography: With a Chronological Record of Discoveries, Inventions, Etc., Contributions to Photographic Literature, and Personal Reminescences Extending over Forty YearsWerge, John, active 1854-1890
History
The Evolution of Photography: With a Chronological Record of Discoveries, Inventions, Etc., Contributions to Photographic Literature, and Personal Reminescences Extending over Forty Years
Werge, John, active 1854-1890
Photography -- History
business in Oxford Street, London.
About this time Mr. Skaife introduced his ingenious pistolgraph, but it
was rather in advance of the times, for the dry plates then in the
market were not quite quick enough for "snap shots," though I have seen
some fairly good pictures taken with the apparatus.
At this period a fierce controversy was raging about lunar photography,
but it was all unnecessary, as the moon had photographed herself under
the guidance of Mr. Whipple, of Boston, U.S., as early as 1853, and all
that was required to obtain a lunar picture was sufficient exposure.
On December 3rd, 1861, Thomas Ross read a paper and exhibited a
panoramic lens and camera at a meeting of the Photographic Society, and
on the 15th October, 1889, I saw the same apparatus, in perfect
condition, exhibited as a curiosity at the Photographic Society's
Exhibition. No wonder the apparatus was in such good condition, for I
should think it had never been used but once. The plates were 10 inches
long, and curved like the crescent of a new moon. Cleaning board, dark
slide, and printing-frame, were all curved. Fancy the expense and
trouble attending the use of such an apparatus; I should think it had
few buyers. Certainly I never sold one, and I never met with any person
who had bought one.
Amateurs have ever been the most restless and discontented disciples of
the "Fathers of Photography," always craving for something new, and
seeking to lessen their labours and increase their facilities, and to
these causes we are chiefly indebted for the marvellous development and
radical changes of photography. No sooner was the Daguerreotype process
perfected than it was superseded by _wet_ collodion, and that was barely
a workable process when it became the anxiety of every amateur to have a
_dry_ collodion process, and multitudes of men were at work endeavouring
to make, modify, or invent a means that would enable them to use the
camera as a sort of sketch-book, and make their finished picture at home
at their leisure. Hence the number of Dry Plate processes published
about this period, and the controversies carried on by the many
enthusiastic champions of the various methods. Beer was pitted against
tea and coffee, honey against albumen, gin against gum, but none of them
were equal to wet collodion.
The International Exhibition of 1862 did little or nothing in the
interests of photography. It is true there was a scattered and skied
exhibition at the top of a high tower, but as there was no "lift," I
suspect very few people went to see the exhibits. I certainly was not
there more than once myself. Among the exhibitors of apparatus were the
names of Messrs. McLean, Melhuish and Co., Murray and Heath, P. Meagher,
T. Ottewill and Co., but there was nothing very remarkable among their
exhibits. There was some very good workmanship, but the articles
exhibited were not beyond the quality of the every-day manufacture of
the best camera and apparatus makers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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