The History and Practice of the Art of PhotographySnelling, Henry Hunt
History
The History and Practice of the Art of Photography
Snelling, Henry Hunt
Daguerreotype; Photography
WALL FLOWER.--This flower yields a juice, when expressed with alcohol,
from which subsides, on standing, a bright yellow finely divided
faecula, leaving a greenish-yellow transparent liquid, only slightly
colored supernatant. The faecula spreads well on paper, and is very
sensitive to light, but appears at the same time to undergo a sort of
chromatic analysis, and to comport itself as if composed of two very
distinct coloring principles, very differently affected. The one on
which the intensity and sub-orange tint of the color depends, is
speedily destroyed, but the paper is not thereby fully whitened. A
paler yellow remains as a residual tint, and this on continued exposure
to the light, slowly darkens to brown. Exposed to the spectrum, the
paper is first reduced nearly to whiteness in the region of the blue
and violet rays. More slowly, an insulated solar image is whitened in
the less refrangible portion of the red. Continue the exposure, and a
brown impression begins to be percieved in the midst of the white
streak, which darkens slowly over the region between the lower blue and
extreme violet rays.
THE RED POPPY yields a very beautiful red color, which is entirely
destroyed by light. When perfectly dried on paper the color becomes
blue. This blue color is speedily discharged by exposure to the sun's
rays, and papers prepared with it afford very interesting
photographs.-- Future experiments will undoubtedly more fully develope
the photogenic properties of flowers, and practically apply them.
Certain precautions are necessary in extracting the coloring matter of
flowers. The petals of fresh flowers, carefully selected, are crushed
to a pulp in a mortar, either alone or with the addition of a little
alcohol, and the juice expressed by squeezing the pulp in a clean linen
or cotton cloth. It is then to be spread upon paper with a flat brush,
and dried in the air. If alcohol be not added, it must be applied
immediately, as the air changes or destroys the color instantly.
Most flowers give out their coloring matter to alcohol or water--but
the former is found to weaken, and in some cases to discharge
altogether these colors; but they are in most cases restored in drying.
Paper tinged with vegetable colors must be kept perfectly dry and in
darkness.
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