From Calotype Prints to Eastman Dry Plates

History of Photography Part II - From Shulze to Daguerre

Daguerre's invention may have been initially successful but it could not last. The daguerreotype process had limitations. While it created extremely crisp and relatively vivid images each print was unique and it was reproduceable. Nevertheless the popularity of daguerreotype photography continued for a number of years.

Calotype taken by Fox Talbot, 1853

In 1841 Henry Fox Talbot introduced a patent for his new method of creating positive image photographs based off a set of negative prints. Calotype - or talbotype as it was sometimes called - brought a number of improvements to the field. Images were initially taken on a sheet of paper prepared with silver iodide. This was in turn made more sensitive by a treatment of gallic acid. Talbot discovered that rather than exposing the image until it became fully visible a shorter exposure would produce better results if the negative could be developed with another treatment of gallic acid and silver nitrate. Once the negative print was developed an unlimited number of positive impressions could be taken off of the original. This was done by laying the exposed print over another sheet of photosensitive paper and letting it develop in the sun. The negative image was transferred to the second sheet - in reverse - creating positive print.

Calotype was an advanced technique but had its own limitations. For one, the quality of the print was entirely dependent on the quality of the paper used to make the negative image. Furthermore calotypes tended to fade over time. While was a great step forward it wasn't until the next stage of development that the final nail was driven into the coffin of daguerreotype.

The limitations of the daguerreotype and calotype processes were reinforced by one major hindrance: the inability to affix photosensitive chemicals to glass. Glass would allow for perfectly clear prints from a negative without imperfections in the material distorting the image. A binding agent was needed to fix the photo sensitive materials to the glass. It had to be strong, stable and, most importantly, completely clear! There was some success using egg whites but it wasn't until the 1851 discovery of the collodion wetplate process that the scene really began to change.

Collodion was a thick, viscous liquid which was a mixture of nitrated cotton dissolved into alcohol and ether. Its initial discovery was hailed by surgeons as a liquid bandage due to its strength and ease of application. It was in 1851 that English sculptor and photographer Frederick Scott Archer discovered how to used collodion as an aid to the photographic process. Collodion was mixed with a material such as potassium iodide and spread thinly over a glass plate. This plate was submerged in silver nitrate which allowed silver iodide to form on the surface of the plate sensitizing it to light. This plate could be exposed to light and then processed to produce a very detailed negative image. This negative image could in turn be placed against a black background to display a positive image or printed to a sheet of photo paper in the same way as a calotype. Furthermore increased sensitivity in the photo materials meant that exposures could be much quicker allowing for portraits to be taken more easily.

Collodion wet plate photography had one major limitation: the exposure had to be taken while the plate was still wet. This factor made it difficult to take these images because photographers needed more complex studios and development laboratories. This also made it necessary to travel with large amounts of equipment if a photographer wished to leave his studio.

Nevertheless wet plate process exploded onto the world stage. Archer, much like Daguerre, did not apply for a patent for his new method and so the process was able to spread very quickly throughout the world. It also paved the way for further photographic processes such as carte-de-visite, stereoscopic imaging, ambrotype and ferrotype.

Nadar

The 1850s saw a surge in the popularity of photography. New techniques were lowering prices and mass production allowed photos to be produced faster than ever before. Paris, France was one of the hotbeds of photographic activity. Artists like Nadar and Adolphe Disderi opened photo studios catering to the Parisian intelligentsia and elite. Disderi patented a technique to take eight exposures on a single piece of photo paper. This allowed a series of smaller exposures to be taken without constantly having to replace the plate and also led to the innovative carte-de-visite - cards of visit.

Carte-de-visite were small photographic cards that could be taken easily and shared or traded amongst friends. Many individuals had their images impressed into reproducible carte-de-visite and collecting the images of the famous elite became a global obsession.

The ability to expose a single plate multiple times to form a variety of images created another photographic craze - stereoscopy. A camera could be built with two parallel lenses set at roughly the width of human eyes. These simultaneously exposed two halves of the same plate creating two images which were identical but slightly offset. If a divider - often styled like binoculars without magnification lenses - were used the left eye would only see the left image and the right eye would only see the right image and this would create the illusion of viewing a three dimensional scene. Stereoscopic images enjoyed many years of popularity and many famous and influential figures where photographed in 3-d.

Ambrotype

Ambrotype and ferrotype prints were other major developments that rode the waves of innovation following the development of the collodion wet plate process. Ambrotype prints were patented by James Ambrose Cutting from Boston and may represent the first major contribution to the field of photography by an American photographer. Ambrotypes were directly based on collodion wet plates. In fact very little was different from the wet plate negative process. Instead of creating a positive print off of this the negative image on the glass plate was set against a black background. This created the effect of a positive image because the dark of the background would show through as the "dark" parts of the image where the silver had been washed away by the developing agent. Less costly and free of highly reflective glare, ambrotypes quickly surpassed daguerreotypes in the 1850s and remained popular until the development of the ferrotype process.

Ferrotype - also know as tintype or melainotype - is another process similar to ambrotype and the collodion wetplate. In this process the exposure was made directly onto a thin piece of iron colored black and coated with photosensitive material. These prints were very sturdy, quick to produce and inexpensive. In turn this led to many photographic studios opening and further democratization of the art. Faster exposure times and simpler setup allowed photographers to begin experimenting with outdoor, nature and other types of experimental photography. The main drawback to ferrotype was that - like daguerreotype - no negative image was produced and so it was impossible to reproduce the images.

First Color Photograph - Tartan Ribbon

As the ambrotype and ferrotype processes gained popularity other developments were taking place. James Clerk-Maxwell was not a photographer nor even artistically inclined and yet this physicist and mathematician made a discovery that would set the stage for an entirely new field of photography in years to come. Maxwell is responsible for the theory of electromagnetism and identifying light as waves of energy. Through these discoveries he inadvertently created the trichromatic process and the first color photograph in 1861. Maxwell used red, green and blue colored lenses to take three color separated black and white photos of the same image. These were in turn projected from three similarly filtered projectors onto the same surface creating a full color image for the first time ever.

During the second half of the 19th century the art of photography went through its first major period of artistic and cultural development. Countless photographic firsts took place during this time. One highlight achievement of this period was Mathew Brady (and a small team) capturing over 7,000 photographic slides of the American Civil War. This was not technically the first time that soldiers during war had been photographed but Brady captured images that were in the vein of modern war photojournalism. He was not afraid to capture the brutality and harsh truth of war -including images of dead soldiers from both the Union and the Confederacy. His pictures represent one of the most important collections of photographs that exists. Ironically while these images have become iconic and extremely valuable Brady himself saw little of his own success. He had bankrupted himself financing the documentation of the war and, while offered a small stipend from the US government, he was unable to get himself out of debt and died alone and drunk. His images of the war and the portraits he took during peace time keep his memory alive today.

George Eastman

Collodion wet plate process - aside from being relatively expensive and difficult - had an unexpected drawback: a negative impact on the health of the photographer dude to the caustic nature of the chemicals involved in the process. Richard Leach Maddox - a British physician and an avid photographer - noticed his own health decline as a result of exposure to the ether found in collodion. He started to look around for an alternative way to adhere the photo chemicals to the plate. He could never have imagined the impact his 1871 article in the British Journal of Photography on this subject would have on the art of photography and subsequently the entire. Maddox suggested that rather than coat the plate with collodion why not use a gelatin based emulsion to affix the photo sensitive chemicals to the plate. This turned out to be a landmark discovery in the history of photography.

Within a decade the dry plate process had been stabilized and integrated. Because dry plates had a much longer lifespan compared to wet plates - which needed to be exposed and developed before they dried - dry plates became the first commercially produced form of photography. By 1879 George Eastman had developed a machine which coated plates with the gelatin emulsion. He opened the Eastman Dry Plate Company which would go on to become Eastman Kodak - a photographic powerhouse that would bring the art of photography into the modern world.