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
"Dear Sir,--I have great pleasure in sending you for the purpose of your
lecture some of my now ancient photographs. They show the early
struggles which we had to make. The mounted drawings were all made with
the _ammonia nitrate_ of silver; I send samples of the paper used. In
general the paper selected contained chloride enough to form ammonia
chloride. I send samples of unused paper, procured in 1839--some salted
afterwards.
"All these drawings (which are dated) have been preserved by the
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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