الثبات والوضوح والسرعة .. تاريخ التصوير الضوئي .. كتاب التصوير الضوئي

Fixity, clarity and speed.. History of photography.. Book of photography

Fixity, clarity and speed

The wet collodion method is the result of using a glass plate instead of the metal used as a substrate for the image. Glass, like waxed paper, has no special structural specifications and is lighter and less expensive than metal. For this reason, it is better suited as a substrate for the negative. The use of glass was not a new idea, but it was not possible to stick silver salts to the substrate until then due to the lack of the appropriate agent. The image was separated from the glass plate in the special solutions for processing.

In 1847, Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor, a cousin of Joseph Nicéphore, developed a new method using a glass plate coated with albumin (egg white) and a small amount of potassium iodide. The plate was then treated with a solution of silver azotate, then placed in the apparatus and then exposed with gallic acid. Then came the French photographer Blanchard Everard, who used this paper coated with albumen, which later gained an advantage over silver-chloride paper, so much so that the factories that produced this type of paper consumed 18 million eggs per year! However, the albumen-glass method could not hold up because of the privileges of Fox Talbot, which he issued without informing Niépce de Saint-Victor. Three factors attracted the attention of researchers in photography: image stability, clarity, and speed of production. As for image stability, this was achieved thanks to Niépce, Daguerre, and Fox Talbot. As for clarity, this was achieved by using advanced lenses and, in another context, by using advanced sensitive surfaces. The new lenses also helped shorten the time spent in front of the lens.

The credit for the subsequent progress is due to the London sculptor Frederick Scott Archie, who learned the art of calotype photography in order to be able to observe the similarity between models. He began to try to find a paper more sensitive than albumen paper and for this purpose he tried a relatively new substance, which is cotton powder dissolved in ether, a substance that was used in military surgery to stop bleeding, and this substance was called (Collodion, from the Greek and Cola, meaning

(Ambrotype Scott Archy):
Scott Archy invented the wet collodion method. This image is a negative Ambrotype on a glass mounted on a black background, which gives it a positive view.

(Instant developing machine)

This machine - the laboratory allowed the processing and examination of plates taken on wet collodion. If the first image was bad, another image could be taken directly.

(Ambrotype method)

Half the substrate was withdrawn from this Ambrotype, which revealed the negative and positive images of the same
plate.

Adhesive material. Since paper proved unsuitable as a substrate for collodion, Scott Archy turned to glass coated with a mixture of iodine collodion. And Others experimented with collodion but by drying it before applying the silver iodide layer. Archie, on the contrary, mixed potassium iodide with collodion, dipped the glass plate in a solution of silver nitrophosphate, and placed the whole thing wet in the machine. He noticed that the plate lost speed as it dried, and indeed the wet collodion plate was so fast that the exposure time could be shortened to less than three seconds in sunlight. The development was done with pyrogallic acid or ferrous sulfur, and the fixation was done with either potassium cyanide or sodium persulfite. The wet collodion method required the photographer to have both photographic and chemical experience. Now that photographic production was so closely associated with the laboratory, photographers were obliged, when working outside, to take with them a complete set of equipment: a tent to serve as a laboratory, boxes for the plates, and dozens of bottles of solutions. Tourist rooms with 30 x 40 cm plates were seen in great numbers, although they weighed more than 13 kg: enlargement of images did not yet exist, so the demand was greater for large-scale images.

When Fox Talbot learned of the new wet collodion method, he claimed that Archie's invention was not new and that he had preceded him with the invention of the calotype.

Started

(Julia Cameron's masterpiece):
This Christian nature is the title of a photograph of Maggie Thackery taken by Julia Margaret Cameron in 1868.

(Art photography) was very much in favor of the educated elite of that time.

This caused several problems, especially when Talbot sued a Canadian photographer for infringement of his patent. Talbot lost the case because the court found that wet collodion and calotype were two completely different things. Scott Archie, a shy and modest man, died at the age of 44, relieved by the public recognition of his work, which not only revolutionized the world of photography but also freed England from the privileges that constituted world monopolies. Archie then introduced, with his colleague Peter Fry, the ambrotype, a process that was a successor to the wet collodion method. The ambrotype was a small negative that was reduced in exposure to glass: it was bleached with nitric acid and stuck to a solid substrate. The inversion of the values ​​gave it the appearance of a negative. It resembled Daguerreotypes and became very popular for portraits. In photography, we can say that the English Victorian era was characterized by a lot of activity with many inventions. The wave of stereoscopic photography and the appearance of multi-lens machines appeared exactly with the American invention called the tintype. The tintype was similar to the ambrotype except that the substrate was a metal plate covered with Japanese lacquer on which the collodion rested. The materials used were cheap and the images were made faster than on a glass substrate. The visiting card method was in fashion, and was popularized in Paris by the portrait photographer André Desdérié in 1859. He used a machine with several lenses that produced ten adjacent negatives on a single glass plate, which made him famous overnight. Napoleon III, leading his troops out of Paris to go fight the Austrians, stopped at Desdérié's studio and asked him to photograph him with his famous multi-lens plate. The images of the Emperor were immediately multiplied, mounted on a substrate and distributed everywhere as visiting cards. The next day all of Paris followed the Emperor's example and customers flocked to Desdérié's.

Business cards have only survived as a curiosity. The larger-scale photographs, called "artistic photographs", of this period were good examples of the early years of creative photography. The most famous photographs are those of the former cartoonist Félix Tournachon, nicknamed Nadar: his works were simple, direct and very expressive.

At the same time, the English poets Tennyson, Longfellow and Browning were posing for the lens of the greatest amateur photographer in history, Julia Margaret Cameron. Her photographs have qualities and effects that are rare in early photography: the use of an enlarged surface, large dimensions of the images and carefully considered lighting. She used a large lens and asked her models to remain motionless for 6 to 7 minutes, refusing them a headrest for fear of distorting the natural view of the pose.

Photography in that period could be sophisticated, tiring and long, especially if it was an "artistic" image: an image that could be compared to the hard and precise work of the salon painters. Photography wanted to imitate the painters while the latter used photography to achieve the precision of the drawing (and they defended themselves). Day after day, painters abandoned reality in favor of photographers.

(Beach chatter):

A montage image belonging to Henry Beach

Robinson, obtained from two negatives: the first a picture of the beach and the second a picture of people.

The two pictures were superimposed with clouds.

(Forgotten fashion):

During the nineteenth century, many techniques were invented and quickly forgotten. This is an example of the cristalium (which was popular and in fashion) during the nineteenth century. It was obtained by sticking the image with starch under a transparent glass surface. After the glue had dried, the paper of the substrate was lined with sandpaper (sandpaper). The remaining image is made transparent by applying a layer of wax. Then the image is colored on the glass by hand. In this image, photomontage played an important role.

(Photos of the past)

A family photographed by a traveling photographer. A photo of John Thompson in 1876.