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
On March 14th, 1865, George Wharton Simpson, editor and proprietor of
the _Photographic News_, read a paper at a meeting of the Photographic
Society on a new printing process with collodio-chloride of silver on
paper. Many beautiful examples were exhibited, but the method never
became popular, chiefly on account of the troubles of toning with
sulpho-cyanide of ammonium. The same or a similar process, substituting
gelatine for collodion, is known and practised now under the name of
Aristotype, but not very extensively, because of the same defects and
difficulties attending the Simpsontype. Another new method of positive
printing was introduced this year by Mr. John M. Burgess, of Norwich,
which he called "Eburneum." It was not in reality a new mode of
printing, but an ingenious application of the collodion transfer, or
stripping process. The back of the collodion positive print was coated
with a mixture of gelatine and oxide of zinc, and when dry stripped from
the glass. The finished picture resembled a print on very fine ivory,
and possessed both delicate half-tones and brilliant shadows. I possess
some of them now, and they are as beautiful as they were at first, after
a lapse of nearly quarter of a century. It was a very troublesome and
tedious process, and I don't think many people practised it. Certainly I
don't know any one that does so at the present time.
This was the year of the Dublin International Exhibition. I went to see
it and report thereon, and my opinions and criticisms of the
photographic and other departments will be found and may be perused in
"Contributions to Photographic Literature." On the whole, it was a very
excellent exhibition, and I thoroughly enjoyed the trip.
A new carbon process by M. Carey Lea was published this year. The
ingredients were similar to those employed by Swan and others, but
differently handled. No pigment was mixed with the gelatine before
exposure, but it was rubbed on after exposure and washing, and with care
any colour or number of colours might be applied, and so produce a
polychromatic picture, but I don't know any one that ever did so. I
think it could easily be applied to making photographic transfers to
blocks for the use of wood engravers.
December 5th, 1865, Mr. Walter Woodbury demonstrated and exhibited
examples of the beautiful mechanical process that bears his name to the
members of the Photographic Society. The process was not entirely
photographic. The province of photography ceased on the production of
the gelatine relief. All that followed was strictly mechanical. It is
somewhat singular that a majority of the inventions and modifications of
processes that were introduced this year related to carbon and
permanency.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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